EILY DEAR [DANNY BOY] - chords and comments

Have you ever heard about Fred E. Weatherly? Not? Well, these days not many have, except for people with special interest for poetry and lyrics, but in his own time he was renowned both as a barrister and wordsmith.

Frederic(k) Edward Weatherly, KC (1848 – 1929) was a lawyer (in fact he didn't start this career until approaching forty) with a stong passion for verses and rhymes. And he was prolyfic: he wrote more than 3000 poems; half of them became song lyrics. One of these became a song which melody most everybody in all parts of the world have heard; recorded so many times that a normal database will crash trying to store it. The story about it is a long and winding road; I cut it short:
In 1910 he wrote a poem without any idea of a melody. Two years later his sister-in-law Margaret heard a tune in the USA, caught it and sent a copy of the notes to Weatherly. He liked it, plowed through his pile of poems, found one special and rewrote it a little bit. The tune was Londonderry Air and the poem was Danny Boy.
Londonderry Air is an irish folk tune coming out of nowhere, and the name was given by coincidence. The air may be traced back to Aislean an Oigfear {The Young Man’s Dream} from the 17th century, but nobody knows who's behind this one, either.
Weatherly left the song with opera singer Elsie Griffin, who spread the song wider. First recording was made in 1915 by Ernestine Schumann-Heink. Step by step the popularity grew, and for years now it's been the unofficial signature song and anthem of Ireland - though written by a man who never planted his feet on the green islands.

Deep down the subway of internet I found an obsolete website containing THIS background stuff. WARNING! Holy Cat, this is tough shit. Have your white pills ready.

The song is apparently sung by a woman; from the words. A male vocal may be a father's adieu to a leaving son. If a song - to be sold as "sheet music" - could be bisexual, it would cover a double market. To be sure; Weatherly wrote a special male version "Eily Dear", hardly ever mentioned. I leave you both, with his original words, I believe from his own biography "Piano and Gown" (1926).

...D7    G         G7                  C     ...Am7
oh Eily dear  the pipes the pipes are calling
      D6  D7  G        Bm       Em       A7  ...D7
from glen to glen and down the mountain side
              G       G7             C     ...Am7
the summer's gone and all the roses falling
     D7      Em     A7     D7        G   ...D7sus4 ... D7
it's I  it's I must go and you must bide
               C         Am              G    ...C+2...D7sus4
but I'll come back when summer's in the meadow
    D7       Em       E7                    A7 ...D7
or when the valley's hushed and white with snow
               G       C+2           Bm  Em ... C
and you'll be here in sunshine or in shadow
   D7    Bm      E7    A7      D7      G
oh Eily dear  oh Eily dear  I love you so