"John Riley" is a traditional

Traditional music

Traditional music is the term increasingly used for folk music that is not contemporary folk music. More on this is at the terminology section of the World music article...

 English folk song (Roud

Roud Folk Song Index

The Roud Folk Song Index is a database of 300,000 references to over 21,600 songs that have been collected from oral tradition in the English language from all over the world...

 #264).

Joan Baez

Joan Baez

Joan Chandos Baez is an American folk singer, songwriter, musician and a prominent activist in the fields of human rights, peace and environmental justice....

 recorded the song for her debut album, Joan Baez

Joan Baez (album)

Joan Baez was singer Joan Baez's 1960 self-titled debut album, featuring 13 traditional folk songs.-History:Though Baez was reportedly offered a contract with Columbia at the time, she chose to go instead with the independent Vanguard label, hoping for increased artistic license...

, in 1960 and it is her version that is often credited with helping to popularise the song during the 1960s folk revival

American folk music revival

The American folk music revival was a phenomenon in the United States that began during the 1940s and peaked in popularity in the mid-1960s. Its roots went earlier, and performers like Josh White, Burl Ives, Woody Guthrie, Lead Belly, Richard Dyer-Bennett, Oscar Brand, Jean Ritchie, John Jacob...

. The duo Art & Paul also recorded the song in 1960, for their Songs of Earth and Sky album, and Judy Collins

Judy Collins

Judith Marjorie "Judy" Collins is an American singer and songwriter, known for her eclectic tastes in the material she records ; and for her social activism. She is an alumna of the University of Colorado.-Musical career:Collins was born and raised in Seattle, Washington...

 included it on her 1961 A Maid of Constant Sorrow

A Maid of Constant Sorrow

A Maid of Constant Sorrow is a 1961 album, the debut of Judy Collins, released by Elektra Records and featuring traditional folk songs. Collins' voice and guitar are sparsely accompanied by Fred Hellerman and Walter Raim on second guitar, Erik Darling on banjo, and Bill Lee on bass...

album. The Los Angeles folk rock

Folk rock

Folk rock is a musical genre combining elements of folk music and rock music. In its earliest and narrowest sense, the term referred to a genre that arose in the United States and the UK around the mid-1960s...

 band The Byrds

The Byrds

The Byrds were an American rock band, formed in Los Angeles, California in 1964. The band underwent multiple line-up changes throughout its existence, with frontman Roger McGuinn remaining the sole consistent member until the group disbanded in 1973...

 recorded a version of the song that was influenced by Baez's rendition on their 1966 album, Fifth Dimension

Fifth Dimension (album)

Fifth Dimension is the third album by the American rock band The Byrds and was released in July 1966 on Columbia Records . Most of the album was recorded following the February 1966 departure of the band's principal songwriter Gene Clark...

.

The song is derived from Homer

Homer

In the Western classical tradition Homer , is the author of the Iliad and the Odyssey, and is revered as the greatest ancient Greek epic poet. These epics lie at the beginning of the Western canon of literature, and have had an enormous influence on the history of literature.When he lived is...

's Odyssey

Odyssey

The Odyssey is one of two major ancient Greek epic poems attributed to Homer. It is, in part, a sequel to the Iliad, the other work ascribed to Homer. The poem is fundamental to the modern Western canon, and is the second—the Iliad being the first—extant work of Western literature...

, filtered through the 17th century English folk ballad

Folk music of England

Folk music of England refers to various types of traditionally based music, often contrasted with courtly, classical and later commercial music, for which evidence exists from the later medieval period. It has been preserved and transmitted orally, through print and later through recordings...

tradition, and tells the story of a prospective suitor who asks a woman if she will marry him. She replies that she cannot because she is betrothed to John Riley, who has gone away over the seas. He persists, asking her whether Riley is worth waiting for and suggesting that he may have drowned, been killed in war, or married another woman. She maintains that she will continue to wait for him, irrespective of his possible fate. In the last stanza, the suitor reveals that he is in fact John Riley, returned from the seas, and has been testing his beloved. The song's theme, that of the "disguised true lover", has long been a theme in traditional folk ballads and several variations of this song exist.

Lyrics

A fair young maid all in her garden,

A strange young man comes passing by

Saying fair maid, will you marry me

And this answer was her reply

No kind sir, I cannot marry thee

For I've a love who sails all on the sea

He's been gone for seven years

But still no man will I marry

Well what if he's in some battle slain

Or drowned in the deep salt sea

Or what if he's found another love

And he and his love both married be?

If he's in some battle slain

I will die, when the moon doth wane

And if he's drowned in the deep salt sea

I'll be true to his memory

And if he's found another love

And he and his love both married be

Then I wish them health and happiness

Where they now dwell across the sea

He picked her up all in his arms

And kisses gave her one two and three

Saying weep no more my own true love

I am your long lost John Riley.