Danny Boy – Fingerstyle Guitar Tab

The guitar tab below is a chord melody for “Danny Boy.” I’ve arranged it for fingerstyle solo guitar.

Danny Boy

“Danny Boy” uses the melody of “Londonderry Air,” a traditional Irish melody first printed in The Ancient Music of Ireland in 1855. In 1913, Fred Weatherly set the lyrics to the tune and thus it became known as “Danny Boy.”

In the video below, I play a fingerstyle solo guitar arrangement of “Danny Boy.”

Danny Boy – Guitar Tab

The complete sheet music is 2 pages and includes guitar tablature, standard notation, chord symbols, and guitar chord diagrams.

Danny Boy - Solo Guitar Tab

Download the fingerstyle tab for “Danny Boy” as a PDF.

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History and Lyrics

An article from 1934 explains that the tune could have been originally in ¾. And that the person who submitted the tune to the folk collector possibly heard the tune in 4/4. It is possible that the musician was playing it rubato and misleading the listener.  Whatever happened, it has since been played in 4/4 common time.

The 1913 lyrics by Frederick E. Weatherly:
Oh, Danny boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling
From glen to glen, and down the mountain side.
The summer's gone, and all the roses falling,
It's you, It's you must go and I must bide.
But come ye back when summer's in the meadow,
Or when the valley's hushed and white with snow,
It's I'll be there in sunshine or in shadow,—
Oh, Danny boy, Oh Danny boy, I love you so!

But when ye come, and all the flowers are dying,
If I am dead, as dead I well may be,
Ye'll come and find the place where I am lying,
And kneel and say an Avé there for me.
And I shall hear, though soft you tread above me,
And all my grave will warmer, sweeter be,
For you will bend
 and tell me that you love me,
And I shall sleep in peace until you come to me!

For more on the history and lyrics of this ballad see the Wikipedia article on the subject here.

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