Maggie (RS#39)

When I first heard this song on a Tom Rush album, I knew I had to learn it. This version is pretty much the one Rush sings. There is another version that appears to have Irish origins that has the same melody and different (mostly) lyrics. This version of the song was first composed by a Canadian, George W. Johnson in 1864. Johnson was a school teacher. He fell in love with Margaret “Maggie” Clark, a women who was a few years younger than him, and also one of his students. Maggie was ill with TB. After they married, Maggie’s health declined and she died on May 12, 1864, just nine months into their marriage. Supposedly Johnson composed the song while standing on the Niagara escarpment overlooking the town of Hamilton, Ontario. Johnson’s poem was published (1864) in a collection of poems called Maple Leaves. In 1866, James A. Butterfield set the poem to music and published it that year. George W. Johnson died in 1917. Today there is a plaque referencing the song on the escarpment above Hamilton and its near the house where George and Maggie first met and then later lived. This song was inducted into the Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame in 2005. Key: A Instrument: Guitar (Capo II, G chording) Tuning: EADGBE NOTE This music video, and the above information, is offered for educational purposes only as I do not own the rights to this song.