Bob Lind's Message Board

I'd be interested to know who wrote the music for this song, if indeed the author is known as opposed to "traditional". I already know the words come from the poem "Song of the Wandering Aengus" by W B Yeats.

I tracked down two other recordings of the song, one by Judy Collins and one by Terry Callier, Neither offers any information about the authorship. Finding information about the song is made difficult by the multiple titles it seems to get given, as well as the fact that there are several other versions of "Golden Apples of the Sun" or "Song of the Wandering Aengus" with the same lyrics, but set to completely different tunes. There is one such version by Donovan, one by The Waterboys, and at least one other.

Good question, Bob Nos.

I'd like to know also.

I love the poem, and love Christy Moore's version as much as Lind's.

Beauty.

JimInNFLD wrote:I always thought that Will Holt wrote the musical setting Judy Collins used, and that she learned it from him at The Gate of Horn in Chicago in the early '60s.

I never heard of Will Holt. Any info?

Reading what bob is quoted as saying about the writing of "Elusive Butterfly", I realise now that the two songs are basically about the same thing, i.e. the pursuit of something you feel you once had, have now lost, and chersih the hope of finding it again someday.

I heard Bob's rendition of "Wandering" recently on a radio program called "Golden Apples of the Sun". They have also been known to play another track from the album-that-dares-not-speak-its-name, namely "Black Night"; those two songs are probably the ones that suffer least from the bad production.