Traditional · Key of G · Public domain
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This chart is written in G. Tap any key above the chart to see the whole song in that key, with every chord already worked out. To stay in G with different chord shapes, play it capo 3 with the E shapes, or capo 5 with the D shapes, or capo 7 with the C shapes. Singing with a group? Pick the key where the highest note is comfortable for everyone, then print that page.
Loch Lomond, or The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond, is the best known of all Scottish songs, and nobody knows who wrote it. It was first printed in Edinburgh in 1841, in Vocal Melodies of Scotland, and a sheet published by Paterson in Edinburgh in 1840 or 1841 calls it Bonnie Loch Loman and credits it to "a lady". Lady John Scott, who wrote the tune of Annie Laurie, was long named as the composer, but she only wrote down a version she heard a boy singing in the Edinburgh streets. The tune is older than any printing and is close to the Scots air Kind Robin Lo'es Me.
The words are usually read as a Jacobite song. After the rising of 1745 collapsed, captured Highlanders were held and executed at Carlisle, and the story goes that one condemned man sang that his spirit would take the "low road" home and be in Scotland before his sweetheart. An 1849 broadside, Flora's Lament for Her Charlie, carries much the same words. Whatever its beginning, the song has been Scotland's farewell ever since: sung at the end of ceilidhs and at Hogmanay, by the Tartan Army at football matches in Runrig's version, and even by the fans of FC Cologne. The words and the tune were both in print by 1841 and are public domain everywhere.
Four chords in G: G, Em, C and D7, in a pattern that repeats on every line of every verse and of the chorus. Each line walks G, Em, C, D7, and every fourth line comes home to G on its last word. The third line of each four starts on C instead of G and passes through Em where the melody lifts; for a three-chord version leave out the Em and stay on G. The song begins on a pickup, "By yon", so the first strum lands on "bonnie". Play a gentle, flowing four, let the chords ring, and ease into each "bonnie, bonnie banks o' Loch Lomond". Keep the Scots words; they are the song.
Loch Lomond in other easy guitar keys: key of A, key of C, key of D, key of E, key of F. Every other key is at the top of the chart.
Tap any chord for its diagram, other voicings, and the notes inside it.
In the key of G, Loch Lomond uses 4 chords: G, Em, C and D7. The chords sit over the words in the chart above, and tapping a chord name under Chords in This Song opens its diagram.
This chart is in the key of G. The other easy guitar keys for it are the key of A, key of C, key of D, key of E, key of F, each with the whole song rewritten. Pick the key whose chords you know, or the one that sits best for the singers: all twelve are one tap away at the top of the chart, with capo options for keeping the open shapes.
Nobody knows for certain, and that is part of the song's pull. The usual reading is a Jacobite one: after the rising of 1745 a captured Highlander, held at Carlisle and facing execution, tells his love that his spirit will take the low road, the fairy path home for a soldier who dies abroad, and reach Scotland before she does by the living road. Whatever its origin, the chorus is a farewell, and Scots sing it as one.
Braes are hillsides, a glen is a narrow valley and the gloaming is dusk. Gae is go, tak' is take, afore is before, frae is from, kens nae means knows no, waeful means sorrowful and wee birdies are little birds. Ben Lomond is the mountain on the loch's eastern shore.
Yes. The words and the melody of Loch Lomond are in the public domain, which is why the full lyrics and chords are published here. You can print this sheet, hand it out, and perform or record the song anywhere without a license.
The other Scottish standard: Auld Lang Syne chords and lyrics
All the campfire and folk song chord sheets, each one in every key.
Further reading: The Bonnie Banks o' Loch Lomond (Wikipedia)
