Also known as 'The College Boy' or 'Young but A'Growing', my version is mainly from Cecil Sharp with amendments gleaned from Stanley Robertson.
singer
songwriter
acoustic
folk
british
guitarist
song
celtic
traditional
fingerstyle
scottish
scotland
guitar
kelso
Story behind the song
This is one of the best-known and oldest folk songs of Britain, with versions in every region. It has migrated to the States with changes to make it easier to understand. This version is played using a fairly crisp steel string guitar accompaniment, and uses the English words with some NE Scottish revision. Specifically, the blue ribbons tied around the wrist and not the 'waist' as often misread; this was a Scottish way of signifying betrothal or marriage. The 'Holland' referred to in the shroud-making was a fabric once woven in the Scottish Borders by Flemish settlers, and popular for sheets.
Lyrics
The trees they do grow high
And the leaves they grow so green
And past and gone are the years my luv
That you and I have seen
It's a cauld winter night my dear
That you and I must bide inside
For the bonny lad is young,
But a-growing
Oh father, dear father, I fear you do my wrong
Ye've married me tae a bonny lad,
But I fear he is too young
Oh daughter, dear daughter
But bide at home a year with me
You'll come to be a lady
While he's growing
We'll send tae the college for a year and a day
And in that time I think you'll find
A man he'll grow to be
I'll buy you blue ribbons, luv
Tae tie aboot his bonny wrists
That the lasses may all know
He's married
At sixteen years of age he was a married man
At seventeen he was the father o' a bonny son
At eighteen years of age the grass was growing green above his grave
For the wars had put an end
To his growing
She'll mak her luv a shroud
O' the Holland oh so fine
And every stitch she puts in it
The tears will run like wine
She'll stay at home and pray for him
Until the day that she does die
And watch all oer his bairn
While it's growing
Oh now my luv is gone
And he in the ground does lie
And the green grass that's ower him
It reaches for the sky
Oh once I had a sweetheart
And now I have got never a one
So faretheewell my luv
For ever