"Four Strong Winds" is a song written by

Ian Tyson Ian Dawson Tyson (September 25, 1933 – December 29, 2022) was a Canadian singer-songwriter who wrote several folk songs, including " Four Strong Winds" and " Someday Soon", and performed with partner Sylvia Tyson as the duo Ian & Sylvia. Ea ...

and recorded by

Canadian Canadians (french: Canadiens) are people identified with the country of Canada. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Canadians, many (or all) of these connections exist and are collectively the source of ...

folk duo Ian and Sylvia. Tyson has noted that he composed the song in about 20 minutes in his then manager

Albert Grossman Albert Bernard Grossman (May 21, 1926 – January 25, 1986) was an American entrepreneur and manager in the American folk music and rock and roll scene. He was famous as the manager of many of the most popular and successful performers of folk and ...

's New York apartment in 1962. A significant composition of the early 1960s folk revival, the song is a melancholy reflection on a failing romantic relationship. The singer expresses a desire for a possible reunion in a new place in the future ("You could meet me if I sent you down the fare") but acknowledges the likelihood that the relationship is over ("But our good times are all gone/And I'm bound for moving on ..."). The song has a clear Canadian context and subtext, including an explicit mention of the province

Alberta Alberta ( ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is part of Western Canada and is one of the three prairie provinces. Alberta is bordered by British Columbia to the west, Saskatchewan to the east, the Northwest Ter ...

as well as references to long, cold winters. In 2005,

CBC Radio One CBC Radio One is the English-language news and information radio network of the publicly owned Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. It is commercial-free and offers local and national programming. It is available on AM and FM to 98 percent of ...

listeners chose this song as the greatest Canadian song of all time on the program '' 50 Tracks: The Canadian Version''. It is considered the unofficial anthem of

Ian and Sylvia and original history

Ian Tyson would recall "Four Strong Winds" as the first song he ever wrote, and credit

Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan, born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Often regarded as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture during a career sp ...

with giving new impetus to

Ian & Sylvia Ian & Sylvia were a Canadian folk and country music duo which consisted of Ian and Sylvia Tyson, née Fricker. They began performing together in 1959 (full-time in 1961), married in 1964, and divorced and stopped performing together in 1975. ...

's career by inspiring the duo to follow his lead in writing "original folk songs":(Ian Tyson quote:)"We had to go in some direction, because we had used up all the real roots music from the Delta on north. Bob blazed the trail into the wilderness, into unknown territory."''Calgary Herald'' 31 August 2019 "It's About Time: Ian Tyson inducted into Canadian Songwriters Hall of Fame" by Eric Volmers p.D1 Specifically Tyson would recall meeting up with Dylan in the autumn of 1962 at the

Greenwich Village Greenwich Village ( , , ) is a neighborhood on the west side of Lower Manhattan in New York City, bounded by 14th Street to the north, Broadway to the east, Houston Street to the south, and the Hudson River to the west. Greenwich Village ...

bar Kettle of Fish:(Ian Tyson quote:)"this kind of little grubby kid in theresaid: 'I got this new song': it was Bobby Dylan - he sang me '

Blowin' in the Wind "Blowin' in the Wind" is a song written by Bob Dylan in 1962. It was released as a single and included on his album ''The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan'' in 1963. It has been described as a protest song and poses a series of rhetorical questions about ...

', he'd just wrote it. And I thought: I can do thatHe wrote 'Blowin' in the Wind' and the next day I wrote 'Four Strong Winds'." In a

National Public Radio National Public Radio (NPR, stylized in all lowercase) is an American privately and state funded nonprofit media organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It differs from othe ...

interview - in which he admitted he could not definitely identify which Dylan song he had heard - Tyson explained how he asked Dylan's manager

"who was the only one n the local folk music scenethat had a roof over his head:'Can I use your apartment tomorrow, cause I want to try and write a song?'I went over there and it was a funky, little apartment. Took my guitar and just opened up the case and started to fooling around and strumming. And it took half an hour" to write "Four Strong Winds". Although Tyson's personal favorite of his compositions is "Summer Wages" from the 1971 ''Ian & Sylvia'' album, he recalls realizing "Four Strong Winds" "was pretty good because henI sang it for the gang at the Bitter End and the Kettle of Fish, all of us folkies tblew everybody away". Ian & Sylvia's second Vanguard LP titled ''Four Strong Winds'' (stereo: VSD-2149; monaural: VRS-9133), released July 1963, entered the ''Billboard'' Top LPs at number 150 the week of September 28, 1963. The song was a hit in Canada, making the top ten of the single charts there in October 1963. In the United States, the song did not have the same initial chart success. Ian and Sylvia's single version (released on Vanguard 35021) entered the ''Cashbox'' magazine "Looking Ahead" chart in September 1963. It was then recorded by The Brothers Four in a version that "bubbled under" the ''Billboard'' Hot 100 in October 1963. Subsequently, it was released by Ian and Sylvia on an album of the same name released in the U.S. in April 1964. It was released in a country arrangement by

Bobby Bare Robert Joseph Bare Sr. (born April 7, 1935) is an American country music singer and songwriter, best known for the songs " Marie Laveau", "Detroit City" and "500 Miles Away from Home". He is the father of Bobby Bare Jr., also a musician. Early ...

in 1964 and became a number three hit on the U.S. country singles chart in early 1965. It also become a big hit in Norway in 1966 in a Norwegian version: "Mot ukjent sted" by The Vanguards and a big hit in Sweden in 1967 in a Swedish version, "Mot okänt land", recorded by Hep Stars.

Other versions

The song has been recorded by many artists, including:

The Seekers The Seekers were an Australian folk-influenced pop quartet, originally formed in Melbourne in 1962. They were the first Australian pop music group to achieve major chart and sales success in the United Kingdom and the United States. They were ...

Judy Collins Judith Marjorie Collins (born May 1, 1939) is an American singer-songwriter and musician with a career spanning seven decades. An Academy Award-nominated documentary director and a Grammy Award-winning recording artist, she is known for her ...

the Chad Mitchell Trio The Chad Mitchell Trio, later known as The Mitchell Trio, were an American vocal group who became known during the 1960s. They performed traditional folk songs and some of John Denver's early compositions. They were particularly notable for perf ...

, The Browns,

Marianne Faithfull Marianne Evelyn Gabriel Faithfull (born 29 December 1946) is an English singer and actress. She achieved popularity in the 1960s with the release of her hit single " As Tears Go By" and became one of the lead female artists during the British I ...

The Searchers ''The Searchers'' is a 1956 American Technicolor VistaVision epic Western film directed by John Ford and written by Frank S. Nugent, based on the 1954 novel by Alan Le May. It is set during the Texas-Native American wars, and stars John Way ...

, Bruce & Terry,

John Denver Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, actor, activist, and humanitarian whose greatest commercial success was as a solo singe ...

The Kingston Trio The Kingston Trio is an American folk and pop music group that helped launch the folk revival of the late 1950s to the late 1960s. The group started as a San Francisco Bay Area nightclub act with an original lineup of Dave Guard, Bob Shane, ...

Trini Lopez Trinidad López III (May 15, 1937 – August 11, 2020) was an American singer, guitarist, and actor. His first album included a cover version of Pete Seeger's "If I Had a Hammer", which earned a Golden Disc for him. His other hits included ...

Waylon Jennings Waylon Jennings (June 15, 1937 – February 13, 2002) was an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. He pioneered the Outlaw Movement in country music. Jennings started playing guitar at the age of eight and performed at age f ...

, Chad and Jeremy,

The Wolfe Tones The Wolfe Tones are an Irish rebel music band that incorporate Irish traditional music in their songs. Formed in 1963, they take their name from Theobald Wolfe Tone, one of the leaders of the Irish Rebellion of 1798, with the double meaning ...

Blue Rodeo Blue Rodeo is a Canadian country rock band formed in 1984 in Toronto, Ontario. They have released 16 full-length studio albums, four live recordings, one greatest hits album, and two video/DVDs, along with multiple solo albums, side projects, a ...

Joan Baez Joan Chandos Baez (; born January 9, 1941) is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and activist. Her contemporary folk music often includes songs of protest and social justice. Baez has performed publicly for over 60 years, releasing more ...

Vanity Fare Vanity Fare (often misspelled ''Vanity Fair'', due to the similarity of the novel and magazine title) are an English pop/rock group formed in 1966. They had the million-selling song, " Hitchin' a Ride", which became a worldwide hit in 1970. ...

, Glenn Yarborough, Saori Minami,

Harry Belafonte Harry Belafonte (born Harold George Bellanfanti Jr.; March 1, 1927) is an American singer, activist, and actor. As arguably the most successful Jamaican-American pop star, he popularized the Trinbagonian Caribbean musical style with an internat ...

Tony Rice David Anthony Rice (June 8, 1951 – December 25, 2020), known professionally as Tony Rice, was an American guitarist and bluegrass musician. He was an influential acoustic guitar player in bluegrass, progressive bluegrass, newgrass and a ...

Johnny Cash John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American Country music, country singer-songwriter. Much of Cash's music contained themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially in the later s ...

The Carter Family Carter Family was a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s. ...

, Hep Stars,

Sarah McLachlan Sarah Ann McLachlan OC OBC (born January 28, 1968) is a Canadian singer-songwriter. As of 2015, she had sold over 40 million albums worldwide. McLachlan's best-selling album to date is '' Surfacing'', for which she won two Grammy Awards (ou ...

, David Wiffen, Schooner Fare, The Pilgrims, and David Houston.

Neil Young Neil Percival Young (born November 12, 1945) is a Canadian-American singer and songwriter. After embarking on a music career in Winnipeg in the 1960s, Young moved to Los Angeles, joining Buffalo Springfield with Stephen Stills, Richie Fu ...

recorded the song for his 1978 album ''

Comes a Time ''Comes a Time'' is the ninth studio album by Canadian singer-songwriter Neil Young, released by Reprise Records in October 1978. Its songs are written as moralizing discourses on love's failures and recovering from worldly troubles. They are la ...

'', with harmony vocals from

Nicolette Larson Nicolette Larson (July 17, 1952 – December 16, 1997) was an American singer. She is perhaps best known for her work in the late 1970s with Neil Young and her 1978 hit single of Young's " Lotta Love", which hit No. 1 on the Hot Adult Conte ...

, and on The Band's ''

The Last Waltz ''The Last Waltz'' was a concert by the Canadian-American rock group The Band, held on American Thanksgiving Day, November 25, 1976, at Winterland Ballroom in San Francisco. ''The Last Waltz'' was advertised as The Band's "farewell concer ...

''. It has received significant airplay over

album oriented rock Album-oriented rock (AOR, originally called album-oriented radio) is an FM radio format created in the United States in the 1970s that focuses on the full repertoire of rock albums and is currently associated with classic rock. Album-orient ...

and

classic rock Classic rock is a US radio format which developed from the album-oriented rock (AOR) format in the early 1980s. In the United States, the classic rock format comprises rock music ranging generally from the mid-1960s through the mid 1990s, prim ...

radio stations and has become part of Young's concert repertoire, including featured performances during Young's yearly appearances at

Farm Aid Farm Aid is an annual benefit concert held for American farmers. History On July 13, 1985, while performing at the Live Aid benefit concert for the 1983–1985 Ethiopian famine, Bob Dylan made comments about family farmers within the United S ...

benefit concerts. Swedish artist

Ulf Lundell Ulf Gerhard Lundell (born 20 November 1949) is a Swedish writer, poet, songwriter, composer, musician and artist. He made his debut in 1975 with the LP '' Vargmåne'' and was immediately hailed as "Sweden's Bob Dylan". In 1976 his first novel, th ...

recorded a translated cover called "Fyra vindar", for his 1985 album ''Den vassa eggen'', which did not make the cut but was later included in a remastered edition in 1998. Another version of Swedish translation, "Mot okänt land", appears on the 2016 album ''Vid Grinden'' by Georga. Norwegian band The Vanguards released it as "Mot ukjent sted" in 1965.

Canadian legacy

The song is performed on the last night of the Edmonton Folk Music Festival each year. Tyson and

Gordon Lightfoot Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter and guitarist who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music. He is credited with helping to define the folk-pop sound of the 19 ...

performed the song at the opening ceremonies of the

1988 Winter Olympics ) , nations = 57 , athletes = 1,423 (1,122 men, 301 women) , events = 46 in 6 sports (10 disciplines) , opening = February 13, 1988 , closing = February 28, 1988 , opened_by = Governor General Jeanne Sauvé , cauldron ...

Calgary Calgary ( ) is the largest city in the western Canadian province of Alberta and the largest metro area of the three Prairie Provinces. As of 2021, the city proper had a population of 1,306,784 and a metropolitan population of 1,481,806, maki ...

. Ian and Sylvia sang the song together at the 50th anniversary of the Mariposa Folk Festival on July 11, 2010, in Orillia, Ontario. On April 5, 2013, a recording of the song by Ian Tyson was played during the funeral of former Alberta Premier

Ralph Klein Ralph Philip Klein (November 1, 1942 – March 29, 2013) was a Canadian politician and journalist who served as the 12th premier of Alberta and leader of the Progressive Conservative Association of Alberta from 1992 until his retirement in 20 ...

, as the honour guard brought his urn into the Jack Singer Concert Hall. The song is also referenced in '' A Prayer for Owen Meany'', the 1989 novel by

John Irving John Winslow Irving (born John Wallace Blunt Jr.; March 2, 1942) is an American-Canadian novelist, short story writer, and screenwriter. Irving achieved critical and popular acclaim after the international success of '' The World According t ...

that deals with Americans living near or across the

Canada–United States border The border between Canada and the United States is the longest international border in the world. The terrestrial boundary (including boundaries in the Great Lakes, Atlantic, and Pacific coasts) is long. The land border has two sections: Can ...

. The narrator remembers how the main character Owen loved to hear that song as sung by the character of Hester.

References

External links

"Four Strong Winds"
at

The Canadian Encyclopedia ''The Canadian Encyclopedia'' (TCE; french: L'Encyclopédie canadienne) is the national encyclopedia of Canada, published online by the Toronto-based historical organization Historica Canada, with the support of Canadian Heritage. Available f ...

{{authority control 1961 songs Bob Dylan songs Johnny Cash songs Trini Lopez songs Hank Snow songs Judy Collins songs The Searchers (band) songs Neil Young songs Bobby Bare songs Culture of Alberta 1963 singles Songs written by Ian Tyson Canadian folk songs Songs about Canada Works about human migration