Also note that the chords are a tone lower than the recording, on account of it being easier for me to sing. The one thing the chord sheet doesn’t show is that there is a little two-beat bar after each chorus – listen to the recording and you’ll see what I mean. The chords (see link below) are very straightforward (there’s only four of them!). But this song – for me, at least – really works in a stripped down form. The Room To Road recording is a full-on band take, a real folk-rock hybrid. Seven short verses, each prefaced withe the “How Long Will I Love You?” question, each responded to with an unambiguous declaration of undying love, many comparing that love to enduring nature and the elements. And it is certainly that straightforwardness that makes it all the more effective. There’s nothing complicated about How Long Will I Love You?, either lyrically or musically. “ Room To Roam“, the follow-up to “Fisherman’s Blues”, saw the band throwing themselves further and deeper into the Ireland, even to the extent of relocating to the Spiddal on the west coast (where the second side of Fisherman’s Blues was recorded, and immortalised on its cover), and it is from that album that this song is taken. The eventual official record of that time was the wonderful “ Fisherman’s Blues” album, although that was very much a tip-of-the-iceberg syndrome – two subsequent albums of additional recordings from that time have already been released ( Too Close To Heaven, and a bonus disc with the remastered original album), and this autumn sees a mammoth 7-CD, 121 track box set and a tour of the album. Well Mike Scott (leader of the band) was obviously finding that sound and the expectations that were going with the success all a bit much, and threw a huge curveball by relocating to Dublin just at the point when the band were about to embrace stadium rock-ness, throwing himself into the sounds of traditional Irish music, folk, country, blues. The big (huge!) guitar sound, the spiritual undertow, what was not to like? Coming from my own personal affiliation with the celtic rock sounds of the time (U2, Simple Minds, Big Country, et al) it seemed a logical step to hook up with them. I hopped on the Waterboys train in the mid-80s, entranced by “The Big Music” © of This Is The Sea.