RED IS THE ROSE – Traditional

We will be singing our new song which is a ballad. It was made popular by the Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem. The melody is the same as a Scottish song about Loch Londonderry. The lyrics of this Irish ballad are very simple, telling a love story which leads to a unexpected sad ending. The lovers swear love and eternal devotion and then in the final verse we learn that they have to separate.

Question: What forces them to go deprecate ways? 

Red is the Rose (Traditional)

Chorus

Red is the Rose by yonder garden grows

And fair is the lily of the valley

Clear is the water that flows from the Boyne

But my love is fairer than any.
T’was down by Killarney’s green woods that we strayed

And the moon and the stars they were shining

The moon shone its rays on her locks of golden hair

And she swore she’d be my love forever.
Chorus
It’s not for the parting that my sister pains

It’s not for the grief of my mother

It is all for the loss of my bonnie Irish lass

That my heart is breaking forever.
Chorus
Answer: Emigration forced them to separate.❤️