The Chieftains are a Grammy winning Irish musical group founded in 1962 (Du… Read Full Bio ↴The Chieftains are a Grammy winning Irish musical group founded in 1962 (Dublin, Ireland), known for performing and popularizing Irish traditional music.

The band has recorded many albums of instrumental Irish folk music, as well as multiple collaborations with popular musicians of many genres, including Country music, Galician traditional music, Cape Breton and Newfoundland music, and rock and roll. They have performed with Van Morrison, The Rolling Stones, Sting, Roger Daltrey, Elvis Costello, Tom Jones, Sinéad O'Connor, James Galway, Jackson Browne, Nancy Griffith and numerous Country-western artists. In 1975, the group won praise for their playing of "Women of Ireland" for Stanley Kubrick's movie Barry Lyndon.

They have won six Grammy Awards and have been nominated eighteen times. In 2002 they were given a Lifetime Achievement Award by the UK's BBC Radio 2. The front covers of the first four albums were designed by Edward Delaney.

Paddy Moloney is the band's leader, and composes or arranges most of the band's music. While the band's members changed numerous times in the band's early history, the membership solidified in 1979 when Matt Molloy replaced Michael Tubridy.

From then until 2002, members included:
Paddy Moloney (uilleann pipes, tin whistle, button accordion, bodhrán)
Matt Molloy (flute, tin whistle)
Kevin Conneff (bodhrán, vocals)
Seán Keane (fiddle, tin whistle)
Martin Fay (fiddle, bones) (born 1938; died 14 November 2012)
Derek Bell (Irish harp, keyboard instruments, oboe) (born 21 October 1935; died 17 October 2002)

In 2002, Fay retired from active membership. In the same year, Bell died due to complications following a minor operation. Fay died on 14 November 2012.

Wild Mountain Thyme
The Chieftains Lyrics

Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴

Oh the Summer time is coming
And the trees are sweetly blooming
And the wild mountain thyme
All around the blooming heather
Will ye go lassie go........
And we'll al lgo together
To pull wild mountain thyme
From around the blooming heather

Will ye go lassie go

I will build my love a bower
Near yon pure crystal fountain
And on it I will pile
All the flowers of the mountain
Will ye go lassie go............
And we'll all go together
To pull wild mountain thyme
From around the blooming heather
Will ye go lassie go
.
If my true love she were gone
I will surely find no other
Where wild mountain thyme
All around the blooming heather
Will ye go lassie go...........
And we'll all go together
To pull wild mountain thyme

From around the blooming heather
Will ye go lassie go

Overall Meaning

The Chieftains' song "Wild Mountain Thyme" is a Scottish-Irish folk tune that speaks of the beauty of nature and the power of love. The song is a conversation between a male and female, with the male urging the female to go with him to the mountains where the wild thyme grows. The lyrics evoke the feeling of summertime, with trees in full bloom and the air fragrant with the smell of heather. The chorus repeats the invitation to go together to the mountain to pick wild thyme.

The song also speaks of a lover's intentions to build a bower near a pure crystal fountain and adorn it with flowers from the mountain. The lyrics suggest that the lover would only find solace in the wild mountain thyme in the absence of his true love. The song embodies the romantic yearning of a lover to escape to the mountains with the beloved and the power of nature to heal and soothe the soul.

Line by Line Meaning

Oh the Summer time is coming
Summer is approaching

And the trees are sweetly blooming
The trees are blooming beautifully

And the wild mountain thyme
The wild thyme on the mountain

All around the blooming heather
The heather is blooming all around

Will ye go lassie go...........
Would you like to go with me

And we'll al lgo together
We will all go together

To pull wild mountain thyme
To collect the thyme that grows on the mountain

From around the blooming heather
From the heather that is blooming around it

Will ye go lassie go
Would you like to go with me

I will build my love a bower
I will construct a shelter for my love

Near yon pure crystal fountain
Close to that clear, pure fountain