on every side, Bunches of roses all over my coffin, Saying there goes a young man cut down in his prime.] Muffle your drums, play your pipes merrily, Play the death [dead] march as you go along. And fire your guns right over my coffin, There goes an unfortunate lad to his home. Recorded versions Recordings of the song have been made by Vernon Dalhart, Eddy Arnold, Johnny Cash, Johnny Western, Joan Baez, Burl Ives, Jim Reeves, Roy Rogers, Marty Robbins, Chet Atkins, Arlo Guthrie, Norman Luboff Choir, Rex Allen, Willie Nelson, Waylon Jennings and many country and western singers, as well as avant garde rocker John Cale, the British pop group Prefab Sprout, Snakefarm, Mercury Rev, Jane Siberry, Suzanne Vega, Paul Westerberg, Buck Ramsey (singer & poet), and The Stone Coyotes. There is also a version on RCA's How The West Was Won double album, Bing Crosby 1960. Harry James recorded a version on his 1966 album Harry James & His Western Friends (Dot DLP 3735 and DLP 25735). Vince Gill recorded a version of three verses of the Irish ballad The Bard of Armagh (which takes the same tune) followed by three verses of this song on the album Long Journey Home, a compilation of songs about Irish emigration and the links between Irish and American folk and country music also featuring Van Morrison, the Chieftains, Mary Black, Elvis Costello and others, in 1998. In Literature The song plays a prominent role in the book and film Bang the Drum Slowly, in which a version of the song is sung by actor Tom Ligon in his role as Piney Woods. The words from the title replace the words "beat the drum slowly" from the lyrics below. This in turn is the phrase used in the song "Bang the Drum Slowly" on the album Red Dirt Girl by Emmylou Harris. The lyrics are also (indirectly) the source of the title of Peter S. Beagle's 1965 travelogue of a cross-USA trip by Heinkel scooter, "I See by My Outfit." The same tune is used for the Irish lament "Bold Robert Emmet" and the sea shanty "Spanish Ladies" . Louis MacNeice wrote a poem called "The Streets of Laredo" about the bombing of London during World War Two. The rhythms of the poem resemble the lyrics of the song, and the 1948 book Holes in the Sky states that his wife