The sun was setting in the west
The birds were singing on ev'ry tree
All nature seemed inclined to rest
But still there was no rest for me
Farewell to Nova Scotia, the sea-bound coast
Let your mountains dark and dreary be
And when I am far away on the briny oceans tossed
Will you ever heave a sigh and a wish for me?
I grieve to leave my native land
I grieve to leave my comrades all
And my aged parents whom I always held so dear
And the bonnie, bonnie lass that I do adore
The drums they do beat and the wars do alarm
The captain calls, we must obey
So farewell, farewell to Nova Scotia's charms
For it's early in the morning I am far, far away
I have three brothers and they are at rest
Their arms are folded on their breast
But a poor simple sailor just like me
Must be tossed and driven on the dark blue sea
"Farewell to Nova Scotia" -- sometimes alternatively but similarly referred to as "Nova Scotia Farewell" or "Farewell Nova Scotia" -- is arguably the best-known of all Canadian folk songs, rivalling "The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald" and the Travellers' version of "This Land Is Your Land". It is the sort of song that if you heard it you'd know it, even if you couldn't place it; it is infectious, and I often find myself humming it under my breath.
The words and music are traditional, and therefore in the public domain. This means that anyone can record a version of it without having to pay royalties, and they do; most famously, the song has been covered by Ian and Sylvia and later the Irish Rovers, but innumerable others have done so as well.
The other part of "traditional" is that no-one knows who really wrote it, or when and for whom.
The song was unearthed by Helen Creighton, a sometime radio announcer and schoolteacher who had graduated from McGill University in 1915. Working as a journalist in the late 1920s, she stumbled upon the rich oral traditions of rural Nova Scotia. Fortunately for everyone, she was able to parlay her sudden interest in folklore into a lifetime's worth of fascinating research and writing.
Creighton spent the next sixty years traipsing around the province, by boat and on foot when necessary to reach the most isolated of communities, carrying her notebooks and reed organ in a wheelbarrow, taking down stories and copying folk songs wherever they materialised, like a Canadian version of Gustav Holst.
The archives in which her work is stored house all manner of things: ghost stories, maps that ostensibly lead to buried treasure, fragments of fishing lore that hadn't ever been written down before, but most importantly an incredible collection of audio recordings of folk songs.
The collection ranges from songs about fishing to ballads about ghosts and love songs. Some of them were written in Europe and brought here by immigrants, while others are native to the Maritimes; some of them have served as inspiration for operas and symphonies, some have fallen into obscurity, and one of them was "Farewell to Nova Scotia".
This particular song came from a district about twenty-five miles east of Halifax. Its recorded date of collection is August 4, 1928.
The story that the song tells is a simple one -- a young sailor is called away from his work and his family to serve in a war (which war? The Penguin Book of Canadian Folk Songs suggests that it was first sung in this form following World War I), and must bid farewell to his home, uncertain as to whether or not he will ever see it again.
A clue to the origins of "Farewell to Nova Scotia" is the similarity between it and a ballad by Scottish poet Robert Tannahill (1774 - 1810) entitled "The Soldier's Adieu", which reads in part as follows:
The weary sun's gane doun the west,
The birds sit nodding on the tree,
All nature now inclines for rest,
But rest allow'd there's none for me:
The trumpet calls to wars alarms,
The rattling drum forbids my stay;
Ah! Nancy, bless thy soldier's arms,
For ere morn I will be far away.
I grieve to leave my comrades dear,
I mourn to leave my native shore,
To leave my aged parents here,
And the bonnie lass whom I adore.
Adieu! dear Scotland's sea-beat coast!
Ye misty vales and mountains blue!
When on the heaving ocean tost,
I'll cast a wishful look to you.
Many immigrants to Nova Scotia came from Scotland; they could very well have brought old folk songs with them, altering the lyrics to fit. "The Soldier's Adieu", while never referenced by
Helen Creighton, is almost undoubtedly the source of "Farewell to Nova Scotia"; they might have even had the same tune.
The song has been played and recorded countless times by all manner of performers. Some of those who have done so are:
Helen Creighton herself also recorded a version, though it was for research purposes only and never saw commercial release. It now sits in Nova Scotia's provincial archives.
Perhaps "Farewell to Nova Scotia" owes its longevity and enduring popularity to its universality -- there are still wars, there is still conscription, and soldiers still die overseas without seeing their hometowns and families again. Its story of loss is entirely too familiar.
Sources:
Helen Creighton. Nova Scotia Archives. http://www.collectionscanada.ca/women/h12-209-e.html
Farewell to Nova Scotia. http://www.corvuscorax.org:8080/~gseto/creighton/farewell.html
The Soldier's Adieu. http://www.corvuscorax.org:8080/~gseto/creighton/soldiers_adieu.html
With help from the All Music Guide in tracking down specific recordings and the artists who made them.
Lyric to "Farewell to Nova Scotia" transcribed from memory and double-checked at http://www.atlanticartists.com/sounds/farewell.html.
Additions to the list of performers are gratefully accepted; /msg me with them and I'll amend it accordingly. (Thanks, CloudStrife!)