Come By The Hills: A Song History

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"Come By the Hills" sets words by the Scottish writer W. Gordon Smith to the Irish slow air "Buachaill ó'n Éirne."[1] The Traditional Tune Archive describes Smith as a journalist and television producer and places the song in the 1960s.[1] Nigel Gatherer's tune notes agree on the decade and identify the melody as an older Irish air.[2] The Archive gives the air in G major, in 3/4 (or 6/8) time, and lists two printed sources from the 1990s, Ó Canainn's Traditional Slow Airs of Ireland (1995) and Tubridy's Irish Traditional Music, vol. 1 (1999); the sources consulted here do not trace it to an earlier collector.[1]

Mezzotint of a steep Highland glen between rocky mountainsides under heavy storm clouds

Joseph Mallord William Turner, Ben Arthur, Scotland, plate 69 from Liber Studiorum, etching and mezzotint, 1819. Scottish Highland hills, shown for the song’s title and its Scottish writer; it has no connection to the song.

According to Gatherer, the first singer was Paddie Bell.[2] Smith had produced her 1965 Waverley album Paddie – Herself and written its sleeve notes, and she recorded "Come By the Hills" on I Know Where I'm Going (1968), issued by Waverley in Britain and by Capitol in the United States.[3] The singer and harpist Loreena McKennitt included it on her first recording, Elemental (1985), whose booklet credits words and music alike as traditional, arranged and adapted by McKennitt, without naming Smith.[4]

It appears in Occasional Number 3, a collection of 18 waltzes and old-time songs in 3/4 time for mountain dulcimer from the repertoire of the ensemble The Doofus, notated by Neal Walters and Heidi Cerrigione, who also publish the book.[5]

Our book that contains the song "Come By The Hills"

Sources

  1. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Buachaill ó'n Éirne".
  2. Nigel Gatherer: "Come By the Hills".
  3. Mainly Norfolk: "Paddie Bell: Paddie – Herself / I Know Where I'm Going".
  4. Quinlan Road: "Elemental" (Loreena McKennitt, CD booklet).
  5. Neal Walters: "The Doofus, Occasional Number 3".
  6. Image: Joseph Mallord William Turner, Ben Arthur, Scotland, plate 69 from Liber Studiorum, etching and mezzotint, 1819. The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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