"Fare Thee Well" (also known as "The Turtle Dove" or "10,000 Miles") is an 18th-century English folk ballad, listed as number 422 in the Roud Folk Song Index. In the song, a lover bids farewell before setting off on a journey, and the lyrics include a dialogue between the lovers.
The first published version of the song appeared in Roxburghe Ballads dated 1710; the lyrics were there given the title "The True Lover's Farewell". The song was traditionally sung to a range of different tunes.
In 1907, the composer and folk-song scholar Ralph Vaughan Williams recorded David Penfold, an innkeeper from Rusper, Sussex, singing "Turtle Dove", and the recording is available online via the British Library Sound Archive.[1]
"Fare Thee Well" shares several lyrics which parallel those of Robert Burns's "A Red, Red Rose". The lyrics are also strikingly similar to a folk song titled, "My Dear Mary Ann"[2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] that dates back to the mid-19th century. Similarities include the meter and rhyme scheme, as well as the alternative title of "Ten Thousand Miles". Lyrical similarities include the opening line, "Fare thee well my own true love", "Ten thousand miles or more" (word-for-word matches), and the question of seeing a dove or other bird crying for its love. The subjects of the songs are practically identical: Lovers mourning their separation and longing to return to one another.
In 1919, Vaughan Williams wrote an arrangement of the song, entitled "The Turtle Dove", for solo baritone (later re-arranged for solo and SATB choir).[8] [9] Tia Blake released a version of the song similar to Vaughan Williams' arrangement and the original phonograph recording on her album Folk Songs & Ballads: Tia Blake and Her Folk-group.[10]
The song has been recorded by Nic Jones, Joan Baez on her 1960 debut album, Mary Black, Eliza Carthy, Chad & Jeremy, Mary Chapin Carpenter, Liam Clancy, Marianne Faithfull, Burl Ives, Molina and Roberts, Bonny Light Horseman, Pete Seeger and June Tabor.
Mary Chapin Carpenter's version was used in the movie Fly Away Home (1996).[11] The King's Singers performed and recorded an arrangement of The Turtle Dove by their baritone Philip Lawson (composer and arranger)
The following lyrics were adapted by Vaughan Williams from the phonograph recording of David Penfold.
Fare you well my dear, I must be goneAnd leave you for a whileIf I roam away I'll come back againThough I roam ten thousand miles, my dearThough I roam ten thousand miles So fair though art my bonny lassSo deep in love am IBut I never will prove false to the bonny lass I loveTill the stars fall from the sky my dearTill the stars fall from the sky
The sea will never run dry, my dearNor the rocks never melt with the sunBut I never will prove false to the bonny lass I loveTill all these things be done my dearTill all these things be done
O yonder doth sit that little turtle doveHe doth sit on yonder high treeA making a moan for the loss of his loveAs I will do for thee my dearAs I will do for thee
References 1-6 are transcribed from the Traditional Ballad Index website listed in "External Links" below