[1] In an 1899 letter to fellow poet Dora Sigerson, Yeats called "The Song of Wandering Aengus" "the kind of poem I like best myself—a ballad that gradually lifts ... from circumstantial to purely lyrical writing.
"[3] At least one scholar has pointed to the Greek folk song "The Fruit of the Apple Tree" as the likely source of Yeats' inspiration.
[3] That song was included in a volume of Greek poetry translated by Lucy Garnett, which Yeats had written a review of in 1896.
[5] The poem has also been compared to the aisling genre of Irish poetry, in which a magical woman appears who represents the country of Ireland.
Their version has been covered, sometimes as "Golden Apples of the Sun" and sometimes as "The Song of Wandering Aengus", by artists including Judy Collins (on the album Golden Apples of the Sun, 1962), Terry Callier (on The New Folk Sound of Terry Callier, 1965), Dave Van Ronk (on No Dirty Names, 1966), Christy Moore (on Ride On, 1984), Karan Casey (on Songlines, 1997), Paul Winter (on Celtic Solstice, 1999), 10,000 Maniacs (on Twice Told Tales, 2015) and Tiny Ruins (on Hurtling Through, 2015).