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Skye Boat Song (C)(WORD)
Skye Boat Song (C)(PDF)
Skye Boat Song (G)(WORD)
Skye Boat Song (G)(PDF)
After an unsuccessful Scottish uprising against the English in the 18th century, the Bonnie Prince Charlie, then still a child and the Stuart claimant to the Scottish throne, was sneaked across to the Isle of Skye, west of Scotland.
Sir Harold Boulton, 2nd Baronet composed the lyrics to an air collected by Anne Campbell MacLeod in the 1870's. The tune is sometimes used as a musical framework for an unrelated poem by Robert Louis Stevenson about his lost youth, which also contains the line "Over the Sea to Skye", now a cornerstone of the tourism industry on the Isle of Skye.
It is often played as a slow lullaby or waltz, and entered into the modern folk canon in the twentieth century with versions by Paul Robeson, Tom Jones, Rod Stewart, Roger Whittaker, Tori Amos, and many others.
I love this melody - the songsheets are the traditional version, but replace the lyrics with the words below and you're singing the Outlander theme song.
Sing me a song of a lass that is gone
Say, could that lass be I?
Merry of soul she sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye
Billow and breeze, islands and seas
Mountains of rain and sun
All that was good, all that was fair
All that was me is gone
Sing me a song of a lass that is gone
Say, could that lass be I?
Merry of soul she sailed on a day
Over the sea to Skye