Danny Boy Sheet Music Irish Sheet Music Traditional Irish

Lyrics Danny Boy Traditional

Danny Boy

Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling.
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.
The summer’s gone, and all the flowers are dying.
It’s you, it’s you must go and I must bide.

But come ye back when summer’s in the meadow.
Or when the valley’s hushed and white with snow.
I’ll be here in sunshine or in shadow.
Oh, Danny boy, oh, Danny boy, I love you so.

But if you come, when all the flowers are dying,
And I am dead, as dead I well may be,
You’ll come and find the place where I am lying,
And kneel and say an “ave” there for me.

And I will know, though soft you tread above me,
And then my grave will richer, sweeter be.
And you’ll bend down and tell me that you love me,
And I will rest in peace until you come to me.

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“Danny Boy’” is a ballad written by English songwriter Frederic Weatherly and usually set to the Irish tune of the “Londonderry Air”. It is most closely associated with Irish communities.

Initially written to a tune other than “Londonderry Air”, the words to “Danny Boy” were penned by English lawyer and lyricist Frederic Weatherly in Bath, Somerset in 1910. After his Irish-born sister-in-law Margaret (known as Jess) in the United States sent him a copy of “Londonderry Air” in 1913 (an alternative version has her singing the air to him in 1912 with different lyrics), Weatherly modified the lyrics of “Danny Boy” to fit the rhyme and meter of “Londonderry Air”.

Traditional Sheet Music
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