This song, from Traffic’s fourth album of the same name, might at first appear to recount the gruesome murder of a fellow named John. Its main character was “cut off at the knee” with scythes, pricked in the heart with pitchforks and “ground between two stones.” It is actually a 16th century Scottish folk song about the planting, growth, and harvesting of barley to make whiskey and beer.

“There was three men come out o’ the west their fortunes for to try,
And these three men made a solemn vow, John Barleycorn must die,
They ploughed, they sowed, they harrowed him in, throwed clods upon his head,
Til these three men were satisfied John Barleycorn was dead.”

While it has its roots in old folklore tales about the Corn God and religious symbolism, it is really a satire on legally prohibiting the production of alcoholic beverages while still needing the drink to get on with everyday life, as revealed in the last verse:

“The huntsman, he can’t hunt the fox,
Nor so loudly to blow his horn,
And the tinker he can’t mend kettle nor pot,
Without a little Barleycorn”

It may even be based much earlier than that as Anglo Saxon and Arthurian Scholar Kathleen Herbert draws a link between the mythical figure Beowa (a figure stemming from Anglo-Saxon paganism that appears in early Anglo-Saxon royal genealogies whose name means “barley”) and the figure of John Barleycorn. Herbert says that Beowa and Barleycorn are one and the same, noting that the folksong details the suffering, death, and resurrection of Barleycorn, yet also celebrates the “reviving effects of drinking his blood.”

Countless versions of this song exist. A Scottish poem with a similar theme, “Quhy Sowld Nocht Allane Honorit Be”, is included in the Bannatyne Manuscript of 1568 and English broadside versions from the 17th century are common. Robert Burns published his own version in 1782, and modern versions abound. Burns’s version makes the tale somewhat mysterious and, although not the original, it became the model for most subsequent versions of the ballad.

This popular version which brought the song to the attention of our generations, came as a result of the break-up of Traffic in 1969, and the initial plan of Steve Winwood to produce a solo album, tentatively named “Mad Shadows”. The plan was for Winwood to play all the instruments using tape overdubbing techniques in the studio. Winwood is a fine multi instrumentalist who could certainly perform such a feat, but he found the process difficult:

I began trying to make music all on my own with tape machines and overdubbing and stuff. It was a very good way of writing, but it was a weird way of making music. The whole thing that makes music special is people. I was getting to the point that I needed the input of other people. It seemed inhuman to make records just by overdubbing.

After completing two songs by himself, he reached out to his old bandmate, drummer and lyricist Jim Capaldi, with whom he had co-written the majority of Traffic’s earlier works. They soon invited Chris Wood, another fellow Traffic member, to provide his woodwind talents. Thus, Traffic was reborn, minus original member Dave Mason who had always been a on-again off-again member with whom these three had frequently had disputes with.

The song and album was engineered by Andy Johns, younger brother of Glynn Johns. Between them the two brothers recorded classic rock’s royalty. Before working with Traffic, Andy Johns recorded Jethro Tull (Stand Up, Living in the Past), Spooky Tooth and Blind Faith. After Traffic his career soared with Led Zeppelin (II, III, the legendary IV, Houses of the Holy, Physical Graffiti) and the Rolling Stones (Sticky Fingers, Exile on Main Street). Quite a resume, and this is just within a span of 4 years.

Steve Winwood also released a solo acoustic version of the song.

Winwood’s decision to re-form Traffic paid off. “John Barleycorn Must Die” became Traffic’s highest-charting album in the U.S., reaching No. 5 and going gold. Although Traffic continued to have fluctuating lineups, they maintained their core of Winwood, Capaldi and Wood through 1974. Wood passed away in 1983, but Winwood and Capaldi brought Traffic back in 1994 for a final album titled “Far From Home”, which reached No. 33 on the Billboard 200.

The song has been recorded by many artists including Joe Walsh (who performed the song live in 2007 as a tribute to Jim Capaldi), Fairport Convention, and Jethro Tull.

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