150. The song “John Barleycorn Must Die” by the band, Traffic, with songwriting credits going to Steve Windwood, is based on an 16th century English folksong. It is an allegorical tale of death and resurrection. The character, John Barleycorn, is the personification of barley and its part in making beer and whiskey. “They’ve ploughed, they’ve sown, they’ve harrowed him in / Threw clods upon his head … They’ve hired men with the scythes so sharp / To cut him off at the knee / They’ve rolled him and tied him by the way / Serving him most barbarously … They’ve hired men with the crab-tree sticks / To cut him skin from bone / And the miller he has served him worse than that / For he’s ground him between two stones … And little Sir John and the nut-brown bowl / And he’s brandy in the glass / And little Sir John and the nut-brown bowl / Proved the strongest man at last”. The tale was popularized in 1782 by Scottish poet Robert Burns. Which can literally be read by reading between the lines of the Steve Windwood version.
