Uploaded February 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
A few verses of the Irish love song “Greenwood Laddie” for Valentine’s Day! I find this song so tender and loving. Despite the narrator expressing in the first verse that their feelings aren’t necessarily reciprocated, by later verses the two seem to be enjoying some tender kisses together :) I learned this song from the singing of friend Sam Gleaves.
This song is thought to have originated in County Antrim, Ireland, and was collected from singers including Robert Cinnamond of Glenavy and Charles Boyle of Belfast who learned it from his mother. Boyle’s mother recalled that the song was sung in the mills and factories in Belfast. Peter Kennedy made the song better known through some of his recordings.
I find Valentine’s Day to be a fun excuse to explore all the traditional songs out there about romantic love, yes, but also heartbreak- the full range of emotions we can feel through these precious and miraculous and complex attachments we have with one another.
Lyrics:
You muses assist me, there's none can resist me
Except for the fair lad that I love so well
While others they grieve me, he's the young man can please me
He'll be my Greenwood Laddie wherever he be
If you'd seen my dearest whose eyes shine the clearest
His cheeks like the red blood that's new dropped in snow
He is neat, tall and slender and his hands warm and tender
He'll be my Greenwood Laddie wherever I roam
A few verses of the Irish love song “Greenwood Laddie” for Valentine’s Day! I find this song so tender and loving. Despite the narrator expressing in the first verse that their feelings aren’t necessarily reciprocated, by later verses the two seem to be enjoying some tender kisses together :) I learned this song from the singing of friend Sam Gleaves.
This song is thought to have originated in County Antrim, Ireland, and was collected from singers including Robert Cinnamond of Glenavy and Charles Boyle of Belfast who learned it from his mother. Boyle’s mother recalled that the song was sung in the mills and factories in Belfast. Peter Kennedy made the song better known through some of his recordings.
I find Valentine’s Day to be a fun excuse to explore all the traditional songs out there about romantic love, yes, but also heartbreak- the full range of emotions we can feel through these precious and miraculous and complex attachments we have with one another.
Lyrics:
You muses assist me, there's none can resist me
Except for the fair lad that I love so well
While others they grieve me, he's the young man can please me
He'll be my Greenwood Laddie wherever he be
If you'd seen my dearest whose eyes shine the clearest
His cheeks like the red blood that's new dropped in snow
He is neat, tall and slender and his hands warm and tender
He'll be my Greenwood Laddie wherever I roam
