"Comin' Thro' the Rye" is a poem written in 1784 byRobert Burns (1759–1796). The words are put to the melody of the Scottish Minstrel "Common' Frae The Town". This is a variant of the tune to which "Auld Lang Syne" is usually sung—the melodic shape is almost identical, the difference lying in the tempo and rhythm.
G. W. Napier, in an 1876Notes and Queries, wrote:[1]
The original words of "Comin' thro' the rye" cannot be satisfactorily traced. There are many different versions of the song. The version which is now to be found in theWorks of Burns is the one given inJohnson'sMuseum, which passed through the hands of Burns; but the song itself, in some form or other, was known long before Burns.
The protagonist, "Jenny", is not further identified, but there has been reference to a "Jenny from Dalry" and a longstanding legend in theDrakemyre suburb of the town ofDalry, North Ayrshire, holds that "comin thro' the rye" describes crossing aford through theRye Water at Drakemyre to the north of the town, downstream from Ryefield House and not far from the confluence of the Rye with the River Garnock.[2][3] When this story appeared in theGlasgow Herald in 1867, it was soon disputed with the assertion that everyone understood the rye to be a field ofrye, wet withdew, which also fits better with other stanzas that substitute "wheat" and "grain" for "rye".[4] An alternative suggestion is that "the rye" was a long narrowcobblestone-paved lane, prone to puddles of water.[2]
While the original poem is already full of sexual imagery, an alternative version makes this more explicit. It has a different chorus, referring to a phallic "staun o' staunin' graith" (roughly "an erection of astonishing size"), "kiss" is replaced by "fuck", and Jenny's "thing" in stanza four is identified as her "cunt".[5][6][7]
O, Jenny's a' weet,[A] poor body,
Jenny's seldom dry:
She draigl't[B] a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
Chorus:
Comin thro' the rye, poor body,
Comin thro' the rye,
She draigl't a' her petticoatie,
Comin thro' the rye!
Gin[C] a body meet a body
Comin thro' the rye,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body cry?[D]
(chorus)
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the glen
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need the warl'[E] ken?[F]
(chorus)
Gin a body meet a body
Comin thro' the grain;
Gin a body kiss a body,
The thing's a body's ain.[G]
(chorus)
Even the "cleaner" version of the Burns lyrics is quite bawdy, and it is this one, or an "Anglicised" version of it, that is most commonly "covered".
Gin a body meet a body
Comin' thro' the rye
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body cry?
Chorus:
Ilka lassie has her laddie
Nane, they say, hae I
Yet a' the lads they smile at me
When comin' thro' the rye.
Gin a body meet a body
Comin' frae the town
Gin a body kiss a body
Need a body frown?
(Chorus)
Gin a body meet a body,
Comin' frae the well,
Gin a body kiss a body,
Need a body tell?
(Chorus)
'Mang the train there is a swain
I dearly lo'e myself
But what his name or whaur his hame
I dinna care to tell
(Chorus)
The title of the novelThe Catcher in the Rye (1951) byJ. D. Salinger comes from the poem's name.Holden Caulfield, the protagonist, misremembers the line of the poem as, "if a body catch a body," rather than, "if a body meet a body." He keeps picturing children playing in a field of rye near the edge of a cliff, and himself catching them when they start to fall off.[8]
