John Barleycorn

this is a realy old song if u pay attention to the lyrics closley its about making beer. barly is what they use to make beer out of so it shows all the stages of having to make it.

yep, exactly alice, also i like the end, how sir john is the strongest. i thought there was a part about how he knocks the biggest men out.. hmm maybe there are a few varietys of the song.

It’s about beer and all alcohol distilled from barley. But more then that, about three men trying to give up drinking and failing. The song is a ballad of alcoholism not beer for beer sake. The irony of this song is that Chris Woods (traffics sax player/flutist) died of alcohol poisoning. Think about it and read the lyrics again.

This is a very old song, the earliest known version dating back to 1568.

It is about the process of making beer from barley, and the last verses tell how important it is economically to England.

I should have read my post before adding it. The song says "And little Sir John and the nut brown bowl and his brandy in the glass," and if you Google "barley brandy" you find lots of recipes for barley wine and that can be distilled into a barley brandy, as brandy is distilled spirits made with wine. As for the political aspects, I don't doubt you folks are right about some of that.

Yes, superficially it IS about making beer. But the process is tied to the parable of Christ. "Unless a grain of wheat (or barley!) dies, it just remains a single grain. But IF it dies, it gives rise to thousands more just like it". So the process of making spirits (like beer) is paralleled with the process of being reborn in the spirit! As Benjamin Franklin once said "Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy!". Amen!

This tune always threw me a little. You'd assume, from the title, that the protagonists (three men) would be attempting to overcome or eliminate alcoholism. It makes clear from the start, though, that it's a futile effort, that the destruction of barley (harvesting, milling, etc) is, in itself the process of making ale. Traffic either chose a slightly more obfuscated version or reworded it slightly, but another version (below) makes the point clear, particularly regarding the ale being 'IN' a nut brown bowl, ie: a plain vessel, as one would use when drinking home-brewed ale. In the end, ale wins out over the more refined/ expensive brandy. Another conclusion can also be drawn, that the three men initially intended to start a brandy distillery but realized it was a losing battle. There are several other, more spiritual/ mythological interpretations, and many different versions.

They have worked their will on John Barleycorn But he lived to tell the tale;
For they pour him out of an old brown jug, And they call him home-brewed ale!

Here's Little Sir John in a nut-brown bowl, And brandy in a glass!
And Little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl Proved the stronger man at last!

For the huntsman he can't hunt the fox Nor loudly blow his horn,
And the tinker can't mend kettles nor pots Without John Barleycorn!

I like what others have said about the song relating to trying to eliminate alcoholism. I have givin up alcohol myself and read books on it. Someone said that the earliest version dates back to 1568. If that's true then it would be very ironic that John barleycorn happens to be one of the writer's of Alcoholics Anonymous's "Big Book", which was written in the 1930's.

"John Barleycorn" is an English folk song. The character of John Barleycorn in the song is a personification of the important cereal crop barley and of the alcoholic beverages made from it, beer and whisky. In the song, John Barleycorn is represented as suffering attacks, death and indignities that correspond to the various stages of barley cultivation, such as reaping and malting.

Scholar Kathleen Herbert draws a link between Beowa (a mythical figure stemming from Anglo-Saxon paganism that appears in early Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies whose name means "barley") and the figure of John Barleycorn. Herbert says that Beowa and Barleycorn are one and the same, noting that the folksong details the suffering, death and resurrection of Barleycorn, yet also celebrates the "reviving effects of drinking his blood." Barleycorn, the personification of the barley, encounters great suffering before succumbing to an unpleasant death. However, as a result of this death alcohol can be produced; therefore, Barleycorn dies so that others may live. Finally his body will be drunk as the alcohol. A popular hymn, "We Plough the Fields and Scatter", is often sung at Harvest Festival to the same tune. On the other hand, in their notes to the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs (London, 1959), editors A L Lloyd and Ralph Vaughan Williams ponder whether the ballad is "an unusually coherent folklore survival" or "the creation of an antiquarian revivalist, which has passed into popular currency and become 'folklorized'". It is in any case, they note, "an old song", with printed versions dating as far back as the sixteenth century.

Countless versions of this song exist. A Scottish poem with a similar theme, Quhy Sowld Nocht Allane Honorit Be, is included in the Bannatyne Manuscript of 1568 and English broadside versions from the 17th century are common. Robert Burns published his own version in 1782, and modern versions abound. Burns's version makes the tale somewhat mysterious and, although not the original, it became the model for most subsequent versions of the ballad. Burns's version begins: Wikisource has original text related to this article: John Barleycorn There was three kings into the east, Three kings both great and high, And they hae sworn a solemn oath John Barleycorn should die. An early English version runs thus: There was three men come out o' the west their fortunes for to try, And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn must die, They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, throwed clods upon his head, And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn was dead. Earlier versions resemble Burns's only in personifying the barley, and sometimes in having the barley be foully treated or murdered by various artisans. Burns' version, however, omits their motives. In an early seventeenth century version, the mysterious kings of Burns's version were in fact ordinary men laid low by drink, who sought their revenge on John Barleycorn for that offence: Sir John Barley-Corn fought in a Bowl, who won the Victory, Which made them all to chafe and swear, that Barley-Corn must dye. Another early version features John Barleycorn's revenge on the miller: Mault gave the Miller such a blow, That from his horse he fell full low, He taught him his master Mault for to know you neuer saw the like sir.

Many versions of the song have been recorded, most notably by Traffic, whose 1970 album John Barleycorn Must Die is named after the song. The song has also been recorded by Fire + Ice, Gae Bolg, Bert Jansch, The John Renbourn Group, Pentangle, Finest Kind, Martin Carthy, Roy Bailey, Martyn Bates in collaboration with Max Eastley, the Watersons, Steeleye Span, Jethro Tull, Joe Walsh, Fairport Convention, The Minstrels of Mayhem, Galley Beggar, Donnybrook Fair, Oysterband, Frank Black, Chris Wood, Quadriga Consort, Maddy Prior, Heather Alexander, Leslie Fish, Tim van Eyken, Barry Dransfield and many other performers. Jack London gave the title John Barleycorn to his 1913 autobiographical novel that tells of his struggle with alcoholism. The song is also a central part of Simon Emmerson's The Imagined Village project. Martin and Eliza Carthy perform the song alongside Paul Weller on The Imagined Village album. Billy Bragg sang in Weller's place on live performances. Rock Guitarist Joe Walsh covered the song live in 2007 as a tribute to Jim Capaldi.

In the 1973 horror film The Wicker Man (1973 film), a Scottish Policeman played by Edward Woodward searches for a missing child on the west Scottish island of Summerisle, which is populated by modern-day Pagans who engage in various Celtic rituals, one of which is the baking of barley bread into the figure of a man known as John Barleycorn, who is referred to by the baker as "The life of the fields".

One trying to hear/transcribe the lyrics would do well to remember that the Traffic version of the song was inspired upon hearing an earlier version. There are numerous earlier poems but the one closest to the Traffic Lyric are in the Penguin Book of English Folk Songs. :

There was three men came out of the west, Their fortunes for to try, And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn should die. They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, Throwed clods upon his head, And these three man made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn was dead.

Then they let him lie for a very long time Till the rain from heaven did fall, Then little Sir John sprung up his head, And soon amazed them all. They let him stand till midsummer Till he looked both pale and wan, And little Sir John he growed a long, long beard And so became a man.

They hired men with the scythes so sharp To cut him off at the knee, They rolled him and tied him by the waist, And served him most barbarously. They hired men with the sharp pitchforks Who pricked him to the heart, And the loader he served him worse than that, For he bound him to the cart.

They wheeled him round and round the field Till they came unto a barn, And there they made a solemn mow of poor John Barleycorn. They hired men with the crab-tree sticks To cut him skin from bone, And the miller he served him worse than that, For he ground him between two stones.

Here’s little Sir John in a nut-brown bowl, And brandy in a glass; And little Sir John in the nut-brown bowl Proved the stronger man at last. And the huntsman he can’t hunt the fox, Nor so loudly blow his horn, And the tinker he can’t mend kettles nor pots Without a little of Barleycorn.