The Lakes of Pontchartrain

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The Lakes of Pontchartrain is an American Civil War song. It shares similar chords and tuning with the Beatles hit Blackbird. All known recordings of the song title "Lakes" as plural, but geographically there is only one Lake of Pontchartrain north of New Orleans.

The song was recorded on the 1978 album called Welcome Here Kind Stranger by Paul Brady.

According to Ready for the Storm, the album by Déanta, this is a "traditional Creole love song, which is of Irish origin."

It is recorded also on the Planxty album, Cold Blow and the Rainy Night. (Shanachie 79011, 1989) The information from that album states that the tune was probably brought back from British and French soldiers fighting in Louisiana and Canada in the War of 1812.

The alternate verse is from the Digital Tradition Folk Song Search.

Another version of the lyrics The Lily of the West was recorded by Peter, Paul and Mary. The Golden Encyclopedia of Folk Music states it was an "English street ballad (broadside ballad)" about 100 years ago.

Bob Dylan performed the song frequently in 1988-1989[1]. The Be Good Tanyas recorded a version on their album Blue Horse.

The band Tangerine Dream recorded a version of the song for their 2007 album Madcap's Flaming Duty.