Wild Mountain Thyme

The Wild Mountain Thyme

"Wild Mountain Thyme" performed by Christoph Nolte

---

Problems playing this file? See media help.

The existing tune of "Wild Mountain Thyme" is significantly different from Tannahill's "The Braes of Balquhither", which was most likely based on a traditional air. In an 1854 publication, George Farquhar Graham notes that Tannahill's song was set to the air "Bochuiddar" (Balquidder), as found in Captain Simon Fraser's Collection of Melodies of the Highlands and Islands of Scotland (1816).^[2][3] Other scholars suggest the melody is based on an old Scottish traditional tune "The Three Carls o' Buchanan".^[4]

McPeake is said to have dedicated the song to his first wife, but his son wrote an additional verse in order to celebrate his father's remarriage. "Wild Mountain Thyme" was first recorded by McPeake's nephew, also named Francis McPeake, in 1957 for the BBC series As I Roved Out.^[4]

The song was gifted to Maggi Peirce, originally of Belfast, by Francis McPeake in 1947.^[5] Peirce immigrated to the U.S. in the 1960s and in 1967 took on the running of Tryworks Coffee House, a hub of folk music and culture in New Bedford, Massachusetts.^{[citation needed]} "Wild Mountain Thyme" was sung every Saturday night at Tryworks, popularising the song to folk music lovers who attended the coffee house.^{[citation needed]}

While Francis McPeake holds the copyright to the song, it is generally believed that rather than writing the song, he arranged an existing travelling folk version and popularised the song as his father's.^[6] When interviewed on radio,^[7] Francis McPeake said it was based on a song he heard whilst travelling in Scotland, and he rewrote it later. Bob Dylan's recording of the song cited it as traditional, with the arranger unknown, though Dylan's copyright records indicate that the song is sometimes "attributed to" McPeake.^[8]

The original version of the song, published in 1957, closely paraphrases the Tannahill version, which was published posthumously in 1822.^[1] Tannahill's original lyrics include a number of phrases that McPeake carried over into his song, including the lines "Let us go, lassie, go" and "And the wild mountain thyme" as he rewrote the song.^{[9][10][11][12][13]}

In her book Fragrance and Wellbeing: Plant Aromatics and Their Influence on the Psyche, author Jennifer Peace Rhind describes "Wild Mountain Thyme" as essentially a love song, with the line, "Wild Mountain Thyme grows among the Scottish heather" perhaps being an indirect reference to the old custom of young women wearing a sprig of thyme, mint or lavender to attract a suitor.^[14] Rhind also notes that, in British folklore, the thyme plant was the fairies' playground and often the herb would be left undisturbed for their use.^[14]

The following is a chronological list of recordings of the song.^[15]

A number of recordings of the song have been made by Bob Dylan. He performed the song in May 1961 in a coffeehouse in Minneapolis.^[23] Dylan and Joan Baez performed a duet of the song in the Savoy Hotel, London, on 4 May 1965, which was filmed by D. A. Pennebaker.^[24] Dylan performed the song with The Band at the Isle of Wight festival on 31 August 1969. This performance was released in 2013 on the Deluxe Edition of The Bootleg Series Vol. 10: Another Self Portrait (1969–1971). Dylan and Joan Baez sang "Wild Mountain Thyme" together on the 1975 Rolling Thunder Revue tour and two live performances of the song from that tour were released in 2019 on the box set The Rolling Thunder Revue: The 1975 Live Recordings.