Original Version

"The Raggle Taggle Gypsy" is a traditional folk song that originated as a Scottish border ballad and was popular in Britain, Ireland and North America, spread by oral tradition.

It is considered one of the most widespread children's ballads among English-speaking communities.

The song appears in the anthology of F.J. Child “English and Scottish Popular Ballads” (or “Child Ballads”): These are 305 traditional ballads from England and Scotland, and their American variants, collected during the second half of the 19th century. These are tunes, lyrics, and Child’s studies on them.

The theme of the song is about a rich lady who runs out to join a traveling gypsy community (The gypsies).

Sometimes this is because the gypsies enchanted her with their singing or even cast a spell on her.

In a typical version, the gentleman returns home to find that his lady "went with the gypsy woman"; he follows her to the end, and when he finds her, he asks her to return home, asking, "Would you abandon your husband and your son?" She refuses to return: in many versions she prefers the cold ground ("What do I care about your thin sheets of feathers?") And the company of the gypsy to the wealth and beautiful bed of her lord.

For obvious reasons, the song has long been a favorite of members of the traveling community.

Hundreds of versions of the song have survived in the oral tradition for over 200 years, well into the 20th century, and have been recorded by folklorists of traditional singers.

One of the most famous and current versions is that of The Waterboys, a band formed in 1983 by musicians from Scotland, England and Ireland. His music went from a fusion of Celtic folk to rock'n'roll, always with a very personal style. It was on their fifth album Room to Room (1990) that they recorded their version of this traditional song. Its great success caused that the group was called to him “the band of the Raggle Taggle”.

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