The Water Is Wide

This is a traditional Scottish folk song - at least related to Child Ballad #204.

In 1982 Pete Seeger wrote a new final verse which appears in Rise Up Singing and also in his musical autobiography, Where Have All the Flowers Gone.

The seagulls wheel, they turn & dive,
The mountain stands beside the sea.
This world we know turns round and round
And all for them - and you & me.

(c) 1993 by Sanga Music Inc.

There have been hundreds of recordings of this beautiful love song. Our favorite is the one of Pete singing at Sanders Theater in Cambridge MA in 1980 - because you can hear many voices joining with his. Pete said he learned the songin the 1950s from his sister Peggy. Peggy married the Scottish singer songwriter Ewan MacColl in 1977.