Description: This song will settle your soul. The melody is beautiful, and the lyrics evoke the natural world and the perspective of the people who love it the most—and are most willing to go home to it. We’re not saying it’s as good as Danny Boy, but it has the same vibe, and you don’t need to be a countertenor to sing it. It’s a potential country/folk sleeper hit, and not just for a male artist. Listen and see if you don’t agree.
Artist Fit: Johnny Cash (late‑era), Kris Kristofferson, John Prine, Gordon Lightfoot, Jason Isbell, Colter Wall, Zach Bryan (folk‑leaning lane), Willie Nelson, The Highwomen (for reinterpretation), Emmylou Harris.
Sync Keywords: elegy, farewell, autumn wind, sunset, homecoming, spiritual reflection, nature imagery, mortality, remembrance, poetic folk, sailor metaphor, hunter metaphor, turning seasons, peaceful passing, Americana, timeless ballad, reflective journey, wind and sky, emotional stillness, cinematic solitude.
Lyrics
If you watch the setting sun,
you will know that I have come.
When the spinning earth has spun another time.
If you listen to the wind,
When the autumn settles in,
And the Chestnut leaves descend another time.
You will hear a song for me,
for the sailor from the sea.
For the lonely hunter home from the hill.
A song for me, a song for me
for the sailor from the sea,
and the lonely hunter home from the hill.
Let me only say goodbye.
to the wide and starry sky.
Let me hear the eagle cry another time.
And I will lay my body down,
where the sunset meets the ground,
when the spinning earth spins round another time.
And in the verse you grave for me,
leave it space enough to read
that he laid his body down with a will.
Like the sailor from the sea,
he is where he longed to be,
like the lonely hunter home from the hill.