The Trees They Do Grow High
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A traditional ballad with versions popular across the British isles and North America. The oldest known written evidence of the song is a two-verse fragment from the manuscripts of Scottish anthologist David Herd, dating to around 1776 or later, though he never included it in his published collections.
The Longest Johns released a YouTube cover of the song on 13 November 2024.
Factoids
An oft-repeated backstory claims that the song is based on the real-life marriage of John Urquhart ("The Young Laird of Craigstoun") and Elizabeth Innes in the 1630s; however, none of the pertinent details of that union match those related in the song. A.L. Lloyd further suggested a possible medieval origin for the song, but this statement appears entirely speculative.[1]
Lyrics
As performed in the video
The trees they do grow high, and the leaves they do grow green
And many years have passed, my love, that you and I have seen
The night is cold and through it you and I must bide alone
My bonny boy is young, but he's growing
Oh father, dear father, you've done to me much wrong
To marry me unto a boy so immature and young
For he is only fifteen years, and I am twenty-one
My bonny boy is young, but he's growing
We'll send him off to college for a year or maybe two
And then perhaps in time, my love, we'll see if that will do
I'll buy a bunch of ribbons white to tie around his waist
To let the ladies know that he's married
One morning in the hayfields at the dawning of the day
They walked together hand in hand to pass the hours away
And what they did as evening came, she never would declare
But never more complained of his growing
At the age of sixteen, oh he was a married man
And at the age of seventeen, she brought to him a son
And at the age eighteen, oh, the grass grew over him
Cruel death soon put an end to his growing
The trees they grew so high, and the leaves they grew so green
And many years have passed, my love, that you and I have seen
Oh, merry times may come again, but while I wait and see
I'll watch over his child while he's growing