Traditional · Key of D · Public domain
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This chart is written in D. Tap any key above the chart to see the whole song in that key, with every chord already worked out. To stay in D with different chord shapes, play it capo 2 with the C shapes, or capo 5 with the A shapes, or capo 7 with the G shapes. Singing with a group? Pick the key where the highest note is comfortable for everyone, then print that page.
The Wild Rover is the song every pub in Britain, Ireland and Australia knows, and the one most likely to get a room clapping in time. Its roots are older than the pubs. In 2015 the folk scholar Brian Peters traced it to a seventeenth-century English broadside by Thomas Lanfiere, The Good Fellow's Resolution, in which a reformed drinker swears off the alehouse. The version we sing was being sold on broadsides before 1829, printed in London's Seven Dials by James Catnach among others, and it crossed the Atlantic to appear in The American Songster in 1845. The Roud index counts 200 versions, with about fifty taken down from singers in England, Scotland, Ireland, Australia and North America.
For most of the nineteenth century it was a temperance song: the rover comes home with gold, confesses, and swears never to play the wild rover again. The historian T. M. Devine describes it as written for the temperance cause, and it travelled from Scotland to America with that movement. The irony that a song about giving up drink became the drinking song of the English-speaking world has not been lost on anyone. The Dubliners recorded it in 1964 and the Clancy Brothers the next year, and between them they fixed the four claps after "And it's no, nay, never" in everyone's memory. The words are anonymous and nearly two centuries old in print, and the tune is traditional, so both are public domain.
Three chords all the way: D, G and A7, and a plain A works just as well. Each verse starts on D, reaches G at the end of the first line, then runs D, G, A7, D through the second, and lines three and four repeat the pattern. The chorus is the fun part: it starts on A7 for "And it's no, nay, never", the room claps four times in the gap, "no, nay, never, no more" comes down on D and G, "will I play the wild rover" does the same, and the last "no never, no more" closes A7 to D. Count a steady, marching four and keep the strumming simple; this song is about the singing. Pub sessions also call it in G and in E, and every key is one tap away at the top of the chart.
The Wild Rover in other easy guitar keys: key of E, key of F, key of G, key of A, key of C. 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 D, The Wild Rover uses 3 chords: D, G and A7. 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 D. The other easy guitar keys for it are the key of E, key of F, key of G, key of A, key of C, 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.
Right after "And it's no, nay, never": the whole room claps four times in the gap, then sings "no, nay, never, no more". On guitar you hold the A7 through the claps, or stop strumming and clap too, and come back in on the D at "no, nay, never". Some rooms bang the table instead; the count is the same.
Nobody knows. The words were being sold on printed broadsides before 1829, and the folk scholar Brian Peters has traced the song back to a seventeenth-century English broadside by Thomas Lanfiere. The Dubliners made the version everyone knows famous in 1964, but they did not write it. Anonymous words that old and a traditional tune are public domain everywhere; only particular recordings and arrangements are protected.
Another song for the end of the night: Loch Lomond chords and lyrics
All the campfire and folk song chord sheets, each one in every key.
Further reading: The Wild Rover (Wikipedia)
