Red Is The Rose: A Song History

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"Red Is the Rose" is a song of love, parting and emigration, found in Ireland and the north-eastern United States, and it shares its melody with the Scottish "Loch Lomond."[1] Some singers have held that "Red Is the Rose" is the older of the two: the Traditional Ballad Index reports that both Joe Heaney and the duo Makem and Clancy believed this.[1] The Index's editor doubts it, reasoning that an emigration song most likely belongs to the nineteenth century and that "Loch Lomond" appears in documented collections roughly a hundred years before it.[1] The Traditional Tune Archive says that "Loch Lomond" seems to have first appeared in print in W. Christie's Traditional Ballad Airs (Edinburgh, 1881), although there are allusions to older origins.[2] Under the Irish title "Sláinte na nGaodhal," the melody appears in the third volume of Roche's Collection of Traditional Irish Music (1927), and the Tune Archive notes that the same air carries "Red Is the Rose."[3] Which set of words came first therefore remains unsettled in the sources consulted here.[1]

Botanical engraving of a pink rose on a stem with green leaves and buds

Pierre Joseph Redouté, ‘Empress Josephine’ or Frankfort Rose (Rosa turbinata), from Les Roses by Claude-Antoine Thory, color stipple engraving, 1817–24. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for the song's title.

The Ballad Index cites a 1980 printing in Sing Out! magazine of Joe Heaney's version, with a variant stanza from Sarah Makem.[1] The Index also points to an American cousin, "Come to the Highland," printed in 1949 in an article on Hudson Valley songs, which shares the chorus and much of the wording.[1] Tommy Makem said that he learned "Red Is the Rose" from his mother, Sarah Makem, and his album notes point out that it uses the tune of "Loch Lomond."[4] Heaney often closed his concerts with it and invited the audience to join the chorus, as he did at the Sydney Opera House in 1976.[5]

Makem recorded the song with Liam Clancy on Two for the Early Dew (Blackbird, 1978), with the arrangement credited to Makem.[6] Shanachie reissued that recording on The Makem & Clancy Collection in 1980.[7] Makem also included it on The Tommy Makem Songbag (Shanachie, 1990).[4] The singer Niamh Parsons, who learned it from Makem, called it one of his best-known songs, and Bram Taylor (1984) and Iain MacGillivray (1986) both recorded it for the Fellside label.[8] MacGillivray remarked that folk audiences take up the chorus readily, probably because they already know the "Loch Lomond" tune.[8]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index (Robert B. Waltz and David G. Engle): "Red is the Rose".
  2. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Loch Lomond (1)" (annotation).
  3. The Traditional Tune Archive: "Sláinte na nGaodhal" (annotation).
  4. The Balladeers (Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem discography): "The Tommy Makem Songbag" (1990).
  5. Cartlanna Sheosaimh Uí Éanaí (Joe Heaney Archive): "Red is the Rose".
  6. The Balladeers (Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem discography): "Two For The Early Dew" (Makem & Clancy, 1978).
  7. The Balladeers (Clancy Brothers & Tommy Makem discography): "The Makem & Clancy Collection" (1980).
  8. Mainly Norfolk (Reinhard Zierke): "Red Is the Rose".