The Highwayman Loreena McKennitt The Highwayman - Google Search
A very moving song that asks us to sympathize with a highway robber over English overlords. Is this a traditional Irish song and how rooted in reality is it? If nothing else it is a beautiful song.
A better link
It’s right there in the credits on your first video: the lyrics are from a poem by Alfred Noyes (The Highwayman (poem) - Wikipedia ) and McKennitt wrote the music. The poem is from 1906, not based on a real incident or anything.
Tangentially related, Fleetwood Mac’s music video for their song Everywhere tells the same story.
Thank you…i was a bit buzzed. I love McKinnetts music.
as the Wikipedia write-up indicates, this used to be a noted poem for readings. Nowadays, poetry reading and recitation has fallen from public favor and even in the schools. Unless the poem is reborn as a song (as in this case), it gets most exposure through parody, like those otherwise forgotten childhood poems in Alice in Wonderland that Lewis Carroll poked fun at.
I have to admit that I know most of these “classic” poems of yore through parodies on Bullwinkle’s Corner and Mad Magazine. In this case, “The Modern Highwayman” from Mad #95 in 1965, with illustrations by Don Martin. I don’t think I’ll ever be able to take this poem (or song) seriously, now that I’ve seen it with Martin’s big-nosed and flop-footed characters. (Not to mentioned updated, with the Highwayman riding a motorcycle)
Complete with a “poot!” from it as he rides off.
“The Lady of Shallot” is a masterpiece of word and music.
https://youtu.be/k0rVNQw1DQM
I love her music, too 
We read The Highwayman on Halloween when I was in fifth grade. Loved it then, love it now.
The Highwayman was one of the poems we were required to read/study in high school. I love Lorena too, she’s very talented. When I heard this song, I marvelled at how she used the poem’s natural rhythm and cadence. The poem, even recited without music, is very musical. Her treatment of it is gorgeous.
Brilliant! Thanks for posting.
I’m a fan of hers - a really haunting voice. If you’d like a taste of one of her original pieces that’s not based on a poem, I recommend Dante’s Prayer. A really beautiful song that never fails to get me a little verklempt.
I’ve always loved Phil Ochs’ version of The Highwayman.
McKennitt’s version of the Highwayman is very moving, but I’m invariably taken out of the moment when I imagine how pissed Bess, the landlord’s daughter would be to find out that the guy she sacrificed herself for throws it all away in a testosterone fueled fit of pique. I mean, the girl gives up her life for you, and twelve hours later you die while waving a sword and galloping down the highway towards guys with guns?
Oh, Loreena McKennitt! Oh, Heaven!
Yep, she’s a fool and he’s a criminal fool.
Very smug of you to say when there was little or no economic opportunity.
wtf?
Most of us would be highwaymen if the only other option was starvation.