The Water Is Wide (song)

"The Water Is Wide" (also called "O Waly, Waly") is a folk song of Scottish origin, based on lyrics that partly date to the 1600s. It remains popular in the 21st century. Cecil Sharp published the song in Folk Songs From Somerset (1906). It is related to Child Ballad 204 (Roud number 87), Jamie Douglas, which in turn refers to the ostensibly unhappy first marriage of James Douglas, 2nd Marquis of Douglas to Lady Barbara Erskine.

Themes and construction

The imagery of the lyrics describes the challenges of love: "Love is handsome, love is kind" during the novel honeymoon phase of any relationship. However, as time progresses, "love grows old, and waxes cold." Even true love, the lyrics say, can "fade away like morning dew."

The modern lyric for "The Water Is Wide" was consolidated and named by Cecil Sharp in 1906 from multiple older sources in southern England, following English lyrics with very different stories and styles, but the same meter. Earlier sources were frequently published as broadsheets without music. Performers or publishers would insert, remove and adapt verses from one piece to another: floating verses are also characteristic of hymns and blues verses. Lyrics from different sources could be used with different melodies of the same metre. Consequently, each verse in the modern song may not have been originally composed in the context of its surrounding verses, nor be consistent in theme.

The Water Is Wide

"The Water Is Wide" might refer to:

The Water Is Wide (album)

The Water Is Wide is an album by jazz saxophonist Charles Lloyd recorded in December 1999 by Lloyd with Brad Mehldau, John Abercrombie, Larry Grenadier, and Billy Higgins with Darek Oles guesting on one track.These tracks are among the last recorded by Higgins before his death in 2001. Additional tracks recorded at these sessions were released as Hyperion with Higgins in 2001.

Reception

The Allmusic review by David R. Adler awarded the album 4 stars calling it "a glorious amalgam of sound". The All About Jazz review by Glenn Astarita stated "Charles Lloyd has rarely sounded better as the musicians seemingly interrogate each other’s souls during these sixty-eight enlightening minutes. Without a doubt, The Water Is Wide should find its way into quite a few top ten lists for the year 2000. Highly recommended". In another review for the same website C. Andrew Hovan stated "the chemistry is solid throughout, making Lloyd’s seventh ECM album particularly special".

Track listing

The Water Is Wide (book)

The Water Is Wide is a 1972 memoir by Pat Conroy and is based on his work as a teacher on Daufuskie Island, South Carolina, which is called Yamacraw Island in the book. The book is sometimes identified as nonfiction and other times identified as a novel.

Yamacraw is a poor island lacking bridges and having little infrastructure. The book details Conroy's efforts to communicate with the islanders, who are nearly all directly descended from slaves and who have had little contact with the mainland or its people. He struggles to find ways to reach his students, ages 10 to 13, some of whom are illiterate or innumerate, and all of whom know little of the world beyond Yamacraw. Conroy (called "Conrack" by most of the students) does battle with the principal, Mrs. Brown, over his unconventional teaching methods and with the administrators of the school district, whom he accuses of ignoring the problems at the Yamacraw school.

A film adaptation, titled Conrack, was created in 1974, starring Jon Voight. A Hallmark Hall of Fame TV movie titled The Water Is Wide, starring Jeff Hephner and Alfre Woodard, was made in 2006.