The Parting Glass

[3] It was purportedly the most popular parting song sung in Scotland before Robert Burns wrote "Auld Lang Syne".

So fill to me the parting glass And drink a health whate’er befall, And gently rise and softly call Good night and joy be to you all

If I had money enough to spend And leisure time to sit awhile There is a fair maid in this town That sorely has my heart beguiled.

[8] The earliest tentative evidence for the existence of the text is from the Skene Manuscript, a collection of Scottish airs written in tablature for the lute and mandora at various dates between 1615 and 1635,[9] as a different tune bearing the name Good Night, and God Be With Yow.

[12][13] The first complete text that bears resemblance to the Parting Glass first appears on a broadside published in 1654 (or circa 1670 according to another dating) called Neighbours farewel to his friends:[13] Now come is my departing time, And here I may no longer stay, There is no kind comrade of mine But will desire I were away.

According to Scot, is said to have been written by one of the Border Reivers executed for the murder in 1600 of Sir John Carmichael, Warden of the Scottish West March.

If I had money for to spend, And time and place to sit awhile, There is a fair maid in this town, So fain I would her heart beguile.

[20][21] In 1800–1802, the song was incorrectly attributed to Joseph Haydn by Sigismund von Neukomm (1778-1858), who entered it in the Hoboken catalogue as "Good night and joy be wi' ye.

'"[23] The celebrated Irish folk song collector Colm Ó Lochlainn has taken note of this identity of melodies between "The Parting Glass" and "Sweet Cootehill Town".

[25] The tune achieved wider currency among shape note singers with its publication, associated with a text first known in the 1814 Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, "Come Now Ye Lovely Social Band", in William Walker's Southern Harmony (1835), and in The Sacred Harp (1844).

Dr Lori Watson, a lecturer in Scottish Ethnology at the University of Edinburgh states that it’s difficult to fully trace the origins of many traditional songs: Although it currently seems that Scotland has evidence of the earliest published melody and several beautiful song variants, the popular Parting Glass currently in circulation has strong Irish and North American influences to thank.

[28] In regard to a modern version by Irish musician Hozier, Scottish singer-songwriter Karine Polwart notes: "It really knocked my socks off.

In 2002, he orchestrated this version for orchestra, choir, pipes, fiddle, and percussion to commemorate the opening of the Helix Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland.

[citation needed] At the request of Margaret Atwood, to end her guest-edited edition of BBC Radio 4's Today programme with the song, a version by singer Karine Polwart and pianist Dave Milligan was commissioned.

In 2023, boygenius collaborated with Ye Vagabonds to release a cover of "The Parting Glass", paying tribute to the late Sinéad O'Connor, an Irish singer and activist who had also recorded the song and who had died earlier that year.