The Parting Glass

Referent

The "parting glass", or "stirrup cup", or "coupe d'etrier" was the final hospitality offered to a departing guest. Once they had mounted, they were presented one final drink to fortify them for their travels. The custom was practiced in Saxony and in several continental countries.^[2]

Text

The earliest known printed version was as a broadside in the 1770s and it first appeared in book form in "Scots Songs" by Herd.^[1] An early version is sometimes attributed to Sir Alex Boswell. The text is doubtless older than its 1770 appearance in broadside, as it was recorded in the Skene Manuscript, a collection of Scottish airs written at various dates between 1615 and 1635.^[3] It was known at least as early as 1605, when a portion of the first stanza was written in a farewell letter, as a poem now known as "Armstrong's Goodnight", by one of the Border Reivers executed that year for the murder in 1600 of Sir John Carmichael, Warden of the Scottish West March.^[4]

Exact lyrics vary between arrangements, but they include most, if not all, of the following stanzas appearing in different orders:

Tune

The earliest known appearance of the tune today associated with this text is as a fiddle tune called "The Peacock", included in James Aird's A Selection of Scots, English, Irish and Foreign Airs, vol. 2, p. 6 (1782).^[7][8]

Robert Burns referred to the air in 1786 as "Good night, and joy be wi' ye a'." when using it to accompany his Masonic lyric "The Farewell. To the brethren of St. James's Lodge, Tarbolton".^[9][10]

In 1800-1802, the song was incorrectly attributed to Joseph Haydn by Sigismund von Neukomm (1778-1858), who entered it in the Hoboken catalogue as "Good night and joy be wi' ye. Hob XXXIa 254. Mi mineur",^[11] which text has been wrongly attributed to Sir Alexander Boswell (1775-1822).

Patrick Weston Joyce, in his Old Irish Folk Music and Songs (1909), gives the tune with a different text under the name "Sweet Cootehill Town," noting, "The air seems to have been used indeed as a general farewell tune, so that—from the words of another song of the same class—it is often called 'Good night and joy be with you all.'"^[12] The celebrated Irish folk song collector Colm O Lochlainn has taken note of this identity of melodies between "The Parting Glass" and "Sweet Cootehill Town".^[13] "Sweet Cootehill Town" is another traditional farewell song, this time involving a man leaving Ireland to go to America.

The tune appeared, with sacred lyrics, in 19th century American tunebooks. "Shouting Hymn" in Jeremiah Ingalls's Christian Harmony (1805) is a related tune.^[14] The tune achieved wider currency among shape note singers with its publication, associated with a text first known in the 1814 Collection of Hymns and Spiritual Songs, "Come Now Ye Lovely Social Band", in William Walker's Southern Harmony (1835), and in The Sacred Harp (1844).^[15] This form of the song is still widely sung by Sacred Harp singers under the title "Clamanda".

Modern adaptations

The song "Restless Farewell", written by Bob Dylan and featured on The Times They Are a-Changin' from 1964, is heavily based on "The Parting Glass".

In 1998, the traditional words were set to a new, slightly different melody by Irish composer Shaun Davey. In 2002, he orchestrated this version for orchestra, choir, pipes, fiddle, and percussion to commemorate the opening of the Helix Concert Hall, Dublin, Ireland.

Actor Pierce Brosnan performed an a capella version of this song in the 2002 movie Evelyn.

Actresses Emily Kinney and Lauren Cohan performed a rendition of this song in the season three premiere episode "Seed" of The Walking Dead. It also appears on the soundtrack, The Walking Dead: Original Soundtrack – Vol. 1.

It was sung by Anne Bonny (played by Sarah Greene) at the ending of the video game Assassin's Creed IV: Black Flag.

Ed Sheeran did a cover as a hidden track at the end of the last song "Give Me Love" on his album +.

Trey Anastasio Band started performing the song live in 2017.