Deadly Wars, The

DESCRIPTION: "Oh the deadly wars are past and blawn And gentle peace returning." The singer laments all the good people killed in the war. In the Burns text, he comes home and begs for lodging -- and meets the girl he loved long ago. She still loves him
AUTHOR: unknown
EARLIEST DATE: 1793 (published by Burns as "When wild War's deadly Blast was blawn")
KEYWORDS: soldier separation return reunion
FOUND IN: Britain(Scotland(Aber))
REFERENCES (4 citations):
Porter/Gower-Jeannie-Robertson-EmergentSingerTransformativeVoice #31, pp. 167-168, "The Deadly Wars" (1 text, 1 tune)
Dallas-TheCruelWars-100SoldiersSongs, pp. 238-239, "The Deadly Wars" (1 text, 1 tune)
ADDITIONAL: _Sing Out_ magazine, Volume 24, #3 (1975), p, 23, "The Deadly Wars" (1 text, 1 tune, the Jeannie Robertson version)
James Kinsley, editor, Burns: Complete Poems and Songs (shorter edition, Oxford, 1969) #406,, pp. 543-545, "When wild War's deadly Blast was blawn" (1 text, 1 tune, from 1793)
Roud #7284
NOTES [128 words]: The Robert Burns version of this is eight eight-line stanzas long, and is a fairly familiar story. The only traditional version appears to have been Jeannie Robertson's, which is only a quarter this long and has a somewhat simplified tune. Even Burns gets folk processed sometimes.
To this compare: (No editor listed), The British Musical Miscellany; Being a Collection of Scotch, English, & Irish Songs, T. Turnbull (Edinburgh, 1805 (available on Google Books), pp. 1-4, "The Soldier's Return":
When wild war's deadly blasts were blawn,
And gentle peace returning,
And eyes again wi' pleasure beam'd
That had been blear'd wi' mourning.
I left the lines and tented fields
Where lang I'd been a lodger,
A humble knapsack a' my wealth,
A poor but honest sodger.... - RBW
Last updated in version 6.4
File: SOv23n3

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