The genre of the night-visiting song is centuries old. The core of the motif is that a boy comes to a girl's window and asks to be let in that way, with the implication that he is doing so because her parents would not let him in through the door. This was in fact a common occurrence throughout many places in European history, which explains the widespread nature of the song motif. The boy has often had to travel far in the cold to reach the girl's window, and he sings about that to convince her to let him in.

Night-visiting songs usually come in one of two modes, tragic and comic. The tragic songs are often about a supernatural visit from a dead lover at the window, two lovers who are doomed to be separated after their night-visit, or about a man who comes into the window with promises of marriage but leaves the forlorn girl behind forever after taking her virginity. An example of the latter is "Cold Hail Windy Night/"The Laird o' Windy Wa's", versions of which go back to at least the 18th century. Here is a more recent version of the lyrics as sung by Martin Carthy:

Oh me hat is frozen to me head

And me feet they are like a lump of lead,

Oh me shoes they are frozen to me feet

With standing at your window.

“Oh let me in,” the soldier cried,

Cold haily windy night,

“Oh let me in,” the soldier cried,

For I'll not come back again oh.”

“Oh me father he watches down on the street,

My mother the chamber keys do keep.

Oh the doors and the windows they do creak

And I dare not let you in oh.”

“Oh let me in,” the soldier cried,

Cold haily windy night,

“Oh let me in,” the soldier cried,

For I'll not come back again oh.”

Oh she's rose up and let him in,

And she's kissed her true love cheek and chin;

She's drawn him between the sheets again

And she opened and let him in oh.

Oh then she has blessed the rainy night,

Cold haily windy night;

Oh then she has blessed the rainy night

That she opened and she let him in oh.

“Oh soldier, soldier, stay with me?

And soldier soldier, won't you marry me?”

“Oh no oh no that ne'er can be

So fare thee well forever.”

Oh then she has wept for the rainy night

Cold haily windy night;

Oh then she has wept for the rainy night

That she opened and she let him in oh.

And he's jumped up all out of the bed

And he's put his hat all on his head,

For she had lost her maidenhead

And her mother has heard the din oh.

Oh then she has cursed the rainy night,

Cold haily windy night;

Oh then she has cursed the rainy night

That she opened and she let him in oh.

Other night-visiting songs, however, are funny and bawdy. One example is the Scottish Gaelic song "Chan e taigh air am bi tughadh", or "It's not a thatched house (that I want)". The oldest version of this song I've been able to find dates back to the 1880s, when Nan MacKinnon's mother learned it from women at the herring gutting who came from the Isle of Lewis. That version is called "Tha i fuar, tha i frasach", or "It is cold, it is showery", a reference to the commonly-cited cold weather for the waiting lover. Mary Morrison, another herring gutter, sings the most complete version of the song.

The gist of the song is that the singer wants a modern house instead of the one-room blackhouses common in the Hebrides because blackhouses are very difficult to have secret nighttime rendezvous in. She and her lover spend several verses trying to figure out where they should meet. Eventually they settle on the blackhouse, only to have their passionate embrace interrupted by the old woman coming in, which causes further chaos by making the cat flee under the dresser and the dog hide under the bed. Many other Gaelic night-visiting songs are similarly comic, where the interruptions of life in a multi-generational, one-room house foil the night-visiting plans. In "Mo Nighean Chruinn Dunn", for example, the wannabe lover is chased through the house and forgets his trousers, which leads him to advise other young night-visiting men that they should wear kilts.

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