American Folksongs & Ballads

Tom Dooley

Tom Dooley

by John Fitzsimmons | The American Folk Experience

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
You killed poor Laura Foster
And now you’re bound to die

You took her on the hillside,
As God almighty knows
You took her on the hillside
And there you hid her clothes

You took her by the roadside
Where you begged to be excused
You took her by the roadside
Where there you hid her shoes

You took her on the hillside
To make her be your wife
You took her on the hillside
There you took her life

Hand me down my banjo
I’ll pick hit on my knee
This time tomorrow,
It’ll be no use to me

They had my trial in Wilkesboro
To reckon what I done
They had my trial in Wilkesboro
That’s where I’ll be hung

This time tomorrow
I reckon where I’ll be
Down in some lonesome hollow
Hanging from a white oak tree

Tom Dula was hanged for the murder of Laura Foster
in Wilkes County, NC in 1868

If you have any more information to share about this song or helpful links, please post as a comment. Thanks for stopping by the site! ~John Fitz

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I am indebted to the many friends who share my love of traditional songs and to the many scholars whose works are too many to include here. I am also incredibly grateful to the collector’s curators and collators of Wikipedia, Mudcat.org, MainlyNorfolk.info, and TheContemplator.com for their wise, thorough and informative contributions to the study of folk music. 

I share this scholarly research on my site with humility, thanks, and gratitude. Please cite sources accordingly with your own research. If you have any research or sites you would like to share on this site, please post in the comment box.  

Thanks!

 

"Tom Dooley" (Roud 4192) is a traditional North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster in Wilkes County, North Carolina by Tom Dula (whose name in the local dialect was pronounced "Dooley"). One of the more famous murder ballads, a popular hit version recorded in 1958 by The Kingston Trio reached No. 1 on the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart, was in the top 10 on the Billboard R&B chart, and appeared in the Cashbox Country Music Top 20.

The song was selected as one of the American Songs of the Century by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), the National Endowment for the Arts, and Scholastic Inc. Members of the Western Writers of America chose it as one of the Top 100 Western songs of all time.[1]

"Tom Dooley" fits within the wider genre of Appalachian murder ballads. A local poet named Thomas Land wrote a song about the tragedy, titled "Tom Dooley", shortly after Dula was hanged.[2][3] In the documentary Appalachian Journey (1991), folklorist Alan Lomax describes Frank Proffitt as the "original source" for the song, which was misleading in that he did not write it.[4] There are several earlier known recordings, notably one that G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter made in 1929, approximately 10 years before Proffitt cut his own recording.

The Kingston Trio took their version from Frank Warner's singing. Warner had learned the song from Proffitt, who learned it from his aunt, Nancy Prather, whose parents had known both Laura Foster and Tom Dula.[5] In a 1967 interview, Nick Reynolds of the Kingston Trio recounted first hearing the song from another performer and then being criticized and sued for taking credit for the song.[6] Supported by the testimony of Anne and Frank Warner, Frank Proffitt was eventually acknowledged by the courts as the preserver of the original version of the song, and the Kingston Trio were ordered to pay royalties to him for their uncredited use of it.

History

A man wearing a Confederate uniform

In 1866, Laura Foster was murdered. Confederate veteran Tom Dula, Foster's lover and the father of her unborn child, was convicted of her murder and hanged May 1, 1868. Foster had been stabbed to death with a large knife, and the brutality of the attack partly accounted for the widespread publicity the murder and subsequent trial received.

Anne Foster Melton, Laura's cousin, had been Dula's lover from the time he was twelve and until he left for the Civil War – even after Anne married an older man named James Melton. When Dula returned, he became a lover again to Anne, then Laura, then their cousin Pauline Foster. Pauline's comments led to the discovery of Laura's body and accusations against both Tom and Anne. Anne was subsequently acquitted in a separate trial, based on Dula's word that she had nothing to do with the killing.[7] Dula's enigmatic statement on the gallows that he had not harmed Foster but still deserved his punishment led to press speculation that Melton was the actual killer and that Dula simply covered for her. (Melton, who had once expressed jealousy of Dula's purported plans to marry Foster, died either in a carting accident or by going insane a few years after the homicide, depending on the version.[citation needed])

Thanks to the efforts of newspapers such as The New York Times and to the fact that former North Carolina governor Zebulon Vance represented Dula pro bono, Dula's murder trial and hanging were given widespread national publicity. A local poet, Thomas C. Land, wrote a song titled "Tom Dooley" about Dula's tragedy soon after the hanging. Combined with the widespread publicity the trial received, Land's song further cemented Dula's place in North Carolina legend[2][3] and is still sung today throughout North Carolina.[citation needed]

A man named "Grayson", mentioned in the song as pivotal in Dula's downfall, has sometimes been characterized as a romantic rival of Dula's or a vengeful sheriff who captured him and presided over his hanging. Some variant lyrics of the song portray Grayson in that light, and the spoken introduction to the Kingston Trio version[6] did the same. Col. James Grayson was actually a Tennessee politician who had hired Dula on his farm when the young man fled North Carolina under suspicion and was using a false name. Grayson did help North Carolinians capture Dula and was involved in returning him to North Carolina but otherwise played no role in the case.[citation needed]

Dula was tried in Statesville, North Carolina because it was believed he could not get a fair trial in Wilkes County. He was given a new trial on appeal but he was again convicted and hanged on May 1, 1868. On the gallows, Dula reportedly stated, "Gentlemen, do you see this hand? I didn't harm a hair on the girl's head."[8]

Dula's last name was pronounced "Dooley", leading to some confusion in spelling over the years. The pronunciation of a final "a" like "y" (or "ee") is an old feature in Appalachian speech, as in the term "Grand Ole Opry".[citation needed] The confusion was compounded by the fact that Dr. Tom Dooley, an American physician known for international humanitarian work, was at the height of his fame in 1958 when the Kingston Trio version became a major hit.[citation needed]

Recordings

"Tom Dooley"
Song by The Kingston Trio
WrittenUnknown, Frank Proffitt’s grandfather (possibly)
ReleasedNovember 19, 1958
GenreFolk
Songwriter(s)Thomas Land
Audio sample

Many renditions of the song have been recorded, most notably:

  • In 1929, G. B. Grayson and Henry Whitter made the first recorded version of Land's song by a group well known at the time, for Victor.[9][10][11][12]
  • Frank Warner, Elektra, 1952. Warner, a folklorist, unaware of the 1929 recording, in 1940 took down the song from Frank Proffitt and passed it to Alan Lomax who published it in Folk Song: USA.[13]
  • On March 30, 1953, the CBS radio series Suspense broadcast a half-hour "Tom Dooley" drama loosely based on the song, which was sung during the program by actor Harry Dean Stanton. While not issued as a commercial recording, transcription discs of the broadcast eventually were digitized and circulated by old time radio collectors.[14][better source needed]
  • The Folksay Trio, which featured Erik Darling, Bob Carey and Roger Sprung, issued the first post-1950 version of the song for American Folksay-Ballads and Dances, Vol. 2 on the Stinson label in 1953. Their version was noteworthy for including a pause in the line "Hang down your head Tom...Dooley". The group reformed in 1956 as The Tarriers, featuring Darling, Carey and Alan Arkin, and released another version of "Tom Dooley" for The Tarriers on the Glory label in 1957.[15]

Other artists that have recorded versions of the song include Paul Clayton, Line Renaud, Bing Crosby, Jack Narz, Steve Earle the Grateful Dead, Arthur "Guitar Boogie" Smith, and Doc Watson. Lonnie Donegan also recorded the song in the UK. It spent 14 weeks in the British charts from November 1958, reaching its highest ranking at number 3 for 5 weeks.

References in other songs

Parodies

"Tom Dooley" prompted a number of parodies, either as part of other songs or as entire songs. For example:

Charts

Weekly chart performance for "Tom Dooley"
Chart (1958–1959) Peak
position
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Flanders)[21] 1
Belgium (Ultratop 50 Wallonia)[22] 1
Netherlands (Single Top 100)[23]
Then called the Muziek Parade chart.
1
Norway (VG-lista)[24] 1
UK Singles (OCC)[25] 5
US Billboard Hot 100[26] 1
Italy (FIMI)[27] 1
US Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs (Billboard)[28]
Then called the Hot R&B Singles chart.
9

Certifications

Certifications for "Tom Dooley"
Region Certification Certified units/sales
United States (RIAA)[29] Gold 1,000,000^

^ Shipments figures based on certification alone.

The Kingston Trio's hit song was the inspiration for the 1959 film The Legend of Tom Dooley, starring Michael Landon as Dooley, and co-starring Richard Rust. A Western set in the immediate aftermath of the Civil War, it was not about traditional Tom Dula legends or the facts of the case, but a fictional treatment tailored to fit the lyrics of the song.

"Tom Dooley" is the name of a season 5 episode of Ally McBeal, in which John Cage sings a version of the song with his Mexican band.

The song was parodied in episode No. 702 of Mystery Science Theater 3000. Crow T. Robot, motivated by one actor's resemblance to Thomas Dewey, sang a version beginning "Hang down your head, Tom Dewey."

Glada Barn's version of Land's song closes Rectify season 2 episode "Mazel Tov".[30]

In the 1980 film Friday the 13th, the campers in the opening scene start to sing the song. The opening scene is set in 1958, the year the Kingston Trio version of the song debuted.

Episode 10 of Santo, Sam and Ed's Total Football Podcast is titled "Hang Down Your Head Tom Dula". This naming was in reference to a sample of the song generated by Santo Cilauro whereby he jokingly claimed Tiziano Crudeli had performed a version of Tom Dooley with "The Kingstown Trio". Crudeli's bombastic commentary style on Diretta Stadio afforded him celebrity status in Italy, and audio of Crudeli's pronunciation of various footballers' names was a constant running gag throughout the Total Football Podcast.

The Irish comedian Dave Allen did a sketch in which two cowboys with guitars sit by a hangman's gallows, trying to compose a ballad. They try to think of a name to incorporate into their song, but have no success. Then Tom Dooley walks past, and they sing, "Hand down your head, Tom Dooley" and think that sounds great, so they hang him.

Song books

  • Blood, Peter; Patterson, Annie (1992). Rise Up Singing. Amherst, Ma: Sing Out Publications. p. 104. ISBN 978-1-881322-13-9.
  • Lomax, Alan; John A., Lomax (1947). Folk Song U.S.A.. Best Loved American Folk Songs (1 ed.). New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce.

See also

References

  1. ^ Western Writers of America (2010). "The Top 100 Western Songs". American Cowboy. Archived from the original on October 19, 2010.
  2. ^ a b Waltz, Robert B.; Enge, David G. "Murder of Laura Foster, The [Laws F36]". The Ballad Index. Fresno State University. Archived from the original on September 24, 2015. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  3. ^ a b Trimble, Marshall (September 25, 2009). "Ask the Marshall: What is the story behind the folk song 'Tom Dooley?'". True West Magazine. Archived from the original on February 17, 2020. Retrieved February 27, 2016.
  4. ^ Lomax, Alan (1991). Appalachian Journey (PBS American Patchwork Series ed.). Association for Cultural Equity. Archived from the original on October 2, 2017. Retrieved August 2, 2015.
  5. ^ Cohen, Ronald (2002). Rainbow Quest: The Folk Music Revival and American Society, 1940–1970. University Of Massachusetts Press. p. 132. ISBN 978-1-55849-348-3.
  6. ^ a b c Gilliland, John (1969). "Show 18 – Blowin' in the Wind: Pop discovers folk music. [Part 1]" (audio). Pop Chronicles. University of North Texas Libraries. Track 5.
  7. ^ Trimble, Marshall (September 25, 2009). "What is the story behind the folk song 'Tom Dooley?'". True West Magazine.[permanent dead link]
  8. ^ "Foster, Sir Tom Scott, (1845–18 Sept. 1918)", Who Was Who, Oxford University Press, December 1, 2007, doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u196545, retrieved September 25, 2023
  9. ^ a b Lopresti, Rob (January 17, 2010). "Boy Kills Girl". Tom Dooley. Criminal Brief. Retrieved February 21, 2010.
  10. ^ John Lomax; Alan Lomax, eds. (1947). Folk Song USA. Duell, Sloan and Pearce. ISBN 978-0452253070.
  11. ^ "G.B. Grayson and Henry Whitter". Our Musical Heritage– Biographies. Bristol, Tn: Birthplace of Country Music Alliance. September 30, 2007. Archived from the original on June 3, 2011.
  12. ^ "Grayson & Whitter". Artist Biography. CMT. October 18, 2009. Archived from the original on September 25, 2008. Retrieved February 23, 2010.
  13. ^ O'Donnell, Lisa (December 8, 2018). "A Bond of Song: Two men, one from New York and the other from the mountains of North Carolina, formed an enduring friendship that brought the ballad of Tom Dooley out of the hollers and onto mainstream radio". Winston-Salem Journal. Winston-Salem, NC. Retrieved November 29, 2020.
  14. ^ "Oldtime Songs as Oldtime Radio Drama" http://boblog.blogspot.com/2017/02/oldtime-songs-as-radio-drama.html
  15. ^ Curry, Peter J. "Tom Dooley: The Ballad That Started The Folk Boom". The Kingston Trio Place.
  16. ^ "The Full National Recording Registry". The Library of Congress. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  17. ^ "Grammy Hall of Fame Award: Past Recipients". The Recording Academy/Grammy.com. Archived from the original on December 24, 2010. Retrieved May 2, 2010.
  18. ^ "Les Compagnons De La Chanson – Tom Dooley (fais ta prière)". Ultratop.
  19. ^ "Les Compagnons de la chanson". infordisc. Select "Les Compagnons de la chanson" from list
  20. ^ "Capitol Steps rolling along". Chicago Tribune. January 16, 2004. Archived from the original on February 10, 2020. Retrieved February 9, 2020.
  21. ^ "The Kingston Trio – Tom Dooley" (in Dutch). Ultratop 50. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  22. ^ "The Kingston Trio – Tom Dooley" (in French). Ultratop 50. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  23. ^ "The Kingston Trio – Tom Dooley" (in Dutch). Single Top 100. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  24. ^ "The Kingston Trio – Tom Dooley". VG-lista. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  25. ^ "Kingston Trio: Artist Chart History". Official Charts Company. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  26. ^ "The Kingston Trio Chart History (Hot 100)". Billboard. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  27. ^ "The Kingston Trio – Tom Dooley". Top Digital Download. Retrieved 1959.
  28. ^ "The Kingston Trio Chart History (Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs)". Billboard. Retrieved May 28, 2024.
  29. ^ "American single certifications – Kingston Trio – Tom Dooley". Recording Industry Association of America. Retrieved July 1, 2024.
  30. ^ "Rectify Season 2 Music Round-up". Sundance TV. August 27, 2015. Archived from the original on December 1, 2017. Retrieved November 22, 2017.

Source: Mainly Norfolk

Saturday, January 23, 2010

Hang Down Your Head Tom Dula

 

The stories behind murder ballads are never as pretty as the songs. The story behind “Tom Dooley” – the 1866 murder of Laura Foster by Tom Dula in Elkville, North Carolina – is particularly ugly. Tom Dula was having an affair with Mrs. Ann Foster Melton and when her cousin Pauline Foster came to work at the Melton home, Tom Dula took her to bed as well. Another cousin, Laura Foster, came to town and Tom had her too. One member of this group contracted syphilis and soon they were all infected. Tom Dula blamed Laura Foster and threatened revenge. Laura’s body was found in a shallow grave and Tom Dula had left for Tennessee. Might have gotten away, “Hadn’t been for Grayson.”
Confederate Soldier

Date: June 18, 1866

Location:  Elkville, NC

Victim:  Laura Foster

Cause of Death: Stabbing

Accused:  Tom Dula

Recording:
“Tom Dooley” –
 The Kingston Trio

Synopsis:

A good storyteller never lets the facts get in the way. When an event is preserved in song and story, the tale will change at the whim of the teller. The sordid tale of Laura Foster’s murder in 1866 has changed through more than 140 years of telling to the point where those involved would hardly recognize it. Mythical villains have emerged, love triangles have sprung from thin air, vengeance and cowardice have been recast as honor.

In the traditional story, Laura Foster was a beautiful young girl with blue eyes and chestnut hair who was being courted by Bob Cummings (some say Bob Grayson) a Yankee schoolteacher. When Laura met Tom Dula, a tall handsome Confederate soldier returning from the war she instantly fell in love. Ann Melton also fell in love with Tom Dula. She was a wealthy, married woman who was even more beautiful than Laura. Ann Melton stabbed Laura Foster to death out of jealousy and Tom Dula was blamed. Dula was hunted relentlessly with Cummings in the lead. He was captured and brought to trial. A witness who could have provided an alibi for Dula was paid by Cummings not to testify. Tom Dula was found guilty and sentenced to hang. Before his execution he confessed to the murder and exonerated Ann Melton. Years later when Ann Melton died people heard the sizzling of cooking meat and saw a black cat climb the wall as the devil came to take her to hell.

That’s the storyteller’s version, but newspapers and the transcripts of Tom Dula’s trials tell a different tale.


The section of North Carolina known as Happy Valley was marked by sharp class distinctions in the 1860’s. The town of Elkville and the fertile lands along the Yadkin River were home to merchants and gentleman farmers. But in the ridges of the mountains a lower class of people lived in squalid cabins on subsistence farms. In an 1868 article, the New York Herald described conditions there:

“A state of immorality unexemplified in the history of any country exists among these people, and such a general system of freeloveism prevails that it is ‘a wise child that knows its father.’”

Tom Dula was born and raised in these mountains and became sexually active at a tender age. Ann Foster married James Melton, a successful cobbler, when she was 14 or 15. Almost immediately she began an affair with Tom Dula who was about the same age as she was. At age 17 Tom joined the 42nd Regiment North Carolina Infantry (not 26th Regiment as is sometimes reported) and fought for the Confederacy in the Civil War. When he returned from the war he picked up his relationship with Ann Melton where it had left off. James Melton, who no longer slept with his wife, didn’t seem to mind when Tom shared his wife’s bed in their one-room cabin.

There were three beds in the Melton cabin. The third was occupied by Pauline Foster, a distant cousin of Ann’s who was hired to do house and farm work. Tom would sometimes share her bed as well, and sometimes Ann, Pauline, Tom would all sleep together. Unbeknownst to Tom and the Meltons, Pauline Foster had come to Elkville seeking treatment for syphilis.

In March of 1866, when Tom Dula was 21, he began to visit Laura Foster, another cousin of Ann Melton, about the same age, who lived with her father Wilson Foster. Laura was described by the newspaper as “frail but beautiful.” She had large front teeth with a large gap between them. Laura had been with many men, but there is no record of a Bob Cummings or a schoolteacher of any name courting her.

Tom Dula frequently spent the night with Laura in her father’s house and, though Wilson Foster was well aware of this, it didn’t seem to bother him. Not long after he started seeing Laura, Tom went to Dr. George N. Carter in Elkville and was diagnosed with syphilis. Tom blamed the disease on Laura Foster and told a friend that he intended to “put through” the woman who gave it to him.

The date of Laura Foster’s disappearance is uncertain – three separate trials recorded three different dates – but from trial testimony, it can be deduced that the date was Friday, May 25, 1866. When Wilson Foster woke up that morning his daughter was gone and so was the mare he kept tied to a tree. The following day the mare returned to Foster’s cabin alone. It was assumed that Laura had died and men in the community spent weeks looking for her body. On June 24, in a spot in the woods near Tom Dula’s place, they found the rope used to tie the mare to a tree and a spot on the ground presumed to be blood.

As Rumors began to spread that Tom Dula had killed Laura Foster, Tom left for Tennessee. Around the same time Pauline Foster also went to Tennessee for some undisclosed reason. When she returned, a friend said she must have gone because she killed Laura Foster. Jokingly Pauline replied “Yes, I and Dula killed her, and I ran away to Tennessee.” Two or three weeks after the remark, Pauline was arrested as an accessory to murder and taken to Wilkesboro Jail. Pauline decided to tell all she knew. She said that Tom Dula and Ann Melton had killed Laura Foster and on September 1 she led a search party to a spot Ann Melton had pointed out as the place they buried Laura. At the spot, one of the horses snorted at a foul order coming out of the ground. The men dug there and found a woman’s body, badly decomposed but identified as Laura Foster by the dress she wore and the gap in her teeth. She had been stabbed through the ribs under the left breast.

In Tennessee, Tom Dula had already been captured. He had changed his name to Hall and was working as a farm hand for Col. James Grayson when deputies from Wilkes County, NC came to arrest him. Dula had left Grayson’s farm by the time deputies arrived. After hearing the story, Col. Grayson joined the deputies in the search for Tom Dula. They caught up with him in Pandora, Tennessee and Col. Grayson persuaded him to surrender. He spent the night under guard at Grayson’s farm before being taken back to Elkville.


Trial: 1. October 1, 1866
          2. January 20, 1868

In a move that surprised everyone involved, Tom Dula’s defense was handled, pro bono, by Zebulon B. Vance, former Governor of North Carolina and Colonel of the 26th North Carolina Regiment who fought valiantly for the Confederacy. Tom Dula is often incorrectly identified as a member of the 26th Regimentan – attempt to explain why Governor Vance took the case.

The trial opened in Wilkesboro, NC on October 1, 1866. The defense requested a severance – that Tom Dula and Ann Melton be tried separately- and a change of venue. Both were granted and the trial was moved to Statesville, NC.

The case against Tom Dula was circumstantial but compelling. All of the dirty laundry was aired, the promiscuity, the syphilis, and the threats made by Tom against Laura Foster. While there were many witnesses who testified on each of these aspects, the most damaging testimony came from Pauline Foster who held nothing back.

Tom Dula was found guilty of murder but the verdict was thrown out on appeal due to some irregularities in the admission of testimony.


The second trial was delayed twice as each side was granted a continuance when witnesses did not appear. To end the delay, a special court of Oyer and Terminer was convened in Statesville on January 20, 1868. Once again Tom Dula was found guilty of murder. This verdict was appealed as well, but the appeal was declined. Dula was sentenced to death.

Verdict:  1. Guilty of murder – overturned on appeal
                2. Guilty of murder


Aftermath: 
The legend says that Tom Dula rode to his execution in a wagon, sitting atop his coffin, playing the banjo and writing the song that 90 years later would be recorded by the Kingston Trio. Over the years, a number of people have claimed authorship but after so long it is impossible to give anyone credit. Tom Dula’s  banjo playing during the civil war is legendary, but in fact, there is no evidence that he ever played banjo. He did play the fiddle, though. Several people testified to that, and he made one trip to the Melton cabin specifically to retrieve his fiddle.

On May 1, 1868 Tom Dula was taken to the old depot in Statesville to a makeshift gallows with a cart as scaffold. According to the New York Herald he spoke for nearly an hour about his childhood, about politics, and about all the people who had perjured themselves at his trials. He did not confess to the crime or exonerate Ann Melton. Allegedly his last words were, “You have such a nice clean rope, I ought to have washed my neck.”

In on November 22, 1958, the Kingston Trio’s recording of “Tom Dooley” reached #1 on the Billboard charts.

On January 9, 2009, his last day in office, Gov. Mike Easley of North Carolina received a request from the Wilkes County newspaper, The Record, and the Wilkes Playmakers, to pardon Tom Dula. The request was denied. The group claimed that Laura Foster was pregnant when she died and Tom Dula was planning to marry her. A good storyteller never lets the facts get in the way.

This is one of 50 stories featured in the new book
The Bloody Century
Sources:
Books: 
West, John Foster. The Ballad of Tom Dula: The Documented Story Behind the Murder of Laura Foster and the Trials and Execution of Tom Dula. New York: Parkway, 2002.

Wellman, Manly Wade. Dead and Gone. New York: University of North Carolina, 1980.
Gravesite (from Findagrave)
Ballad Lyrics (from Mudcat Cafe)

Source: Traditional Songfacts

  • “The Unquiet Grave” is both a poem and a song. Intensely sad, and written in the first person singular, the mourner laments the love of his life sitting weeping at her graveside for a year and a day, at which point her ghost rises up and asks who will not allow her to sleep. He identifies himself and asks for “one kiss of your clay-cold lips”. She disavows him of that notion, and tells him to put his grief behind him and enjoy the rest of his life “Till God calls you away”.
  • Like most traditional songs there are many variations, of the title as well as the lyrics in this case. Extensive research on its origin and development can be found in Volume II of The Traditional Tunes Of The Child Ballads With Their Texts, according to the Extant Records of Great Britain and America, by Bertrand Harris Bronson, which was published by Princeton University Press in 1962. According to this book, none of the extant texts of the ballad is older than the early 19th Century but it probably dates from about the end of the 15th. A version was recorded by [ie sung to] musicologist Cecil Sharp on January 23, 1907 by Mrs Ware of Eley Over Stowey. The same day, Sharp recorded “Cold Blows The Wind” by James Chedgey of Bincombe Over Stowey. Sabine Baring-Gould (who is best known for writing the lyrics to “Onward Christian Soldiers”) collected a version, from J. Woodrich, a blacksmith of Wollacot Moor, Thrushleton, in 1889. Probably the earliest recorded version is “Cold Blows The Wind” which was sung by Elizabeth Doidge, a nurse of Brentnor, and collected by Mrs Gibbons, the daughter of W.L.Trelawney, Bart, c1830. This version had the tune usually associated with “Childe The Hunter”.There is also “How Cold The Winds Do Blow”, sung by Mrs Rugman of Dunsfold, Surrey, 1896; “Cold Blows The Wind To-night, Sweetheart”, sung by Mrs Bowker, of Sunderland Point, Lancashire, in September 1909, and further afield, “The Auld Song From Cow Head” sung by the Reverend Mr Gibbs Bull of Newfoundland in 1929.
  • Another musicologist who researched “The Unquiet Grave” in some depth was the aforementioned Cecil Sharp. Volume I of the 1994 Oxford University Press edition of his …Collection Of English Folk Songs, Edited by Maud Karpeles records no less than seventeen different versions, the oldest of which was sung to him by Mrs Ree at Hambridge, Somerset, on April 4, 1904.
  • “The Unquiet Grave” has been recorded by many artists, including Joan Baez and Karen Mall (suitably amended for gender) and by Luke Kelly. >>

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When you find yourself in the majority, it's time to join the minority ~Mark Twain I have to admit, Google is pretty impressive. The whole set of features that are offered to the public and to educators for free is pretty astounding: email, document creation and...

The Nagging Thing

Not many more nights like this, warm enough to sit outside on the back porch. The kids and Denise long asleep. Usually, during the school year, this is my "time" to catch up on schoolwork--grading, posting the assignments for the week and playing the general catchup...

Dealing with Ether

Trying to only see what is in front of me my eyes are continually drawn away from this page and the work left to be done— my labored words etched and scratched away like fleeting mosaics in dry sand. I need a windowless cell to work the alchemy that shapes the...

Wrenching Day

It has certainly been a long time since wisdom ruled the day. I did get up and run in the rain, and now I am preparing to do some “wrenching” on my motorcycle. I am trying to temper my eagerness to ride with my desire to get everything “right” on the bike--without...

Pruning

These trees have driven so many friends batty, wedged in unstable crotches, embracing hollow, heart-rotted limbs, reaching tentatively, maddened with indecision. From a distance your gestures are very lobsterlike— waving a last embattled claw, as if dueling some...

Ready. Set. Go.

Who forgets to rinse his hair? Me, I guess, for that was the start of my day. I smelled something like coconut oil on my way to school, and then I realized, dang, my hair is still pretty wet. Wet with hair conditioner. And then I get sot school all coconutty smelling...

A Monday Ramble

There is always a hard shift for me at the end of the summer, and today is that day for me. I miss the freedom of last week: I'd wake in the morning, come out to the deck to write poetry or work on my novel--but now today, I feel like I should be preparing for school,...

Trawler

Leave the fog stillness
of a cold harbor town;
cup our hands
in the warm diesel sound—
leave while the children
are calmed in their dreams
by light buoys calling:
“Don’t play around me.”

Me & God

        I am not done with God, nor God with me. I remain obsessed with the notion of the unmoved mover who set the pattern of creation into its initial motion. I stubbornly try to trace my existence back to some infinite beginning—so much so that I loathe the...

The Late and Lazy Teacher

I guess this is a good thing. I showed up five minutes late for class, and my classroom was empty. I walked the hallways of the school and could not find any of them. I sheepishly asked the assistant headmaster if he "happened to see a class of wandering boys?"No, he...

To a teacher

This shift from fall to winterIs the cruelest month:Long days and nightsIn a blather of responsibility’s I hoist from a murky holeAnd sort and siftOn a messy desk. I pity my students who trembleMy red pen of vengeance;Who wait with fetid thoughtsFreighted by what they...

The Mystery in the Cradle

This picture is from Christmas eleven years ago when Tommy was only two weeks old, and now all of them—and Gio and Pipo--are playing charades or some such game in the dining room, shouting and laughing at each other's miscues and fortifying another enduring memory...

In Reply To Einstein

*God casts the die, not the dice. ~Alfred Einstein I am cold down the neck, turtling my head to showers of ice that fall dancing and skidding on skins of crusted snow. I hold my breath when I step, inflating hopes of a weightlessness, and so be undetected
to the play...

Supermoon

Last night the August supermoon reminded me of the fickleness of time and how substance becomes shadow and memories begin to etch themselves immutably into the hardness of what is already lost.

The Right Side of the Inevitable

  Like birds of a feather, we gather together, 'Cuz they're feeling exactly like you... ~John Prine   I am not afraid of being a white minority. I had lunch today with a Jamaican drummer, a Ugandan farmer, and a Senagalese potter. I don’t say this out of...

Garden Woman

I woke today and had my tea
and at the window spent the morning:
the same scene I’ve seen so many times
is each day freshly born;
from the ground I turn each spring and fall
come the flowers sweetly blooming;
you disappear among the weeds—
you are the garden woman.

Make Something out of Something

It's hard to make chicken salad out of chicken manure      Dirty hands are a good sign, so hopefully, you got some mental mud on your hands and created some content to work with today.  To a starving man, any food is good food--unless it...

Searching for an Alibi

Here I am out on the road again
and it feels longer than it was back then;
when I was younger, man, it saw me through—
now it don’t do
what I want it to—

Too ra loo ra loo ra lady I—
I’m just out searching for an alibi
Too ra loo ra loo ra lady I
I’m just out searching for an alibi.

Ghetto of Your Eye

I wrote this song back in the winter of 1989, in the dining car of a steam driven train, somewhere along the Trans-Siberian railway, after meeting a group of Russian soldiers fresh from battle in Afghanistan—that poor country that has been a battleground for way too long.

We stare together hours the snow whipped Russian plain—
rolling in the ghetto of your eye.
We share a quart of vodka
and some cold meat on the train—
you know too much to even wonder why;
I see it in the ghetto of your eye.

On Writing with Rubrics

The only way out is through... Damn! Another long post... For better and worse--and through thick and thin--I keep piling on rubric after rubric to help guide the content, flow, and direction of my students' writing pieces.  The greater irony is that I never set out...

Calvary

It seems like it ain’t been a long time,
But I’m damn pleased your coming by again.
It’s been a while since we sat down and rambled
About this and that and why and who and then
You said that you had to get a move on,
Move on and leave a space behind.
So I spent a while hitting all those old roads:
Old friends and kicking down the wine.

The March Snow

An early March snow brought down all these branches Cracking and crashing throughout a long night, Piling them impatiently in the yard Like jacksticks in a child’s messy room. The stepladder I used to rake the ridge Stands like an awkward sculpture draped in white...

Eighteen Years

At midnight I hear the cuckoo clock chiming from it’s perch in a cluttered kitchen locked in cadence with the tower bell gonging this old mill town at midnight to a deeper sleep, like a call to prayer reminding me that this new day, starting in the dark of a hallowed...

Superman

There’s a little blonde boy in a superman cape
Racing around the back yard;
Sayin’, “Daddy don’t you know I can fly to the moon;
I’m gonna bring you back some stars.
And after that I’m gonna save the world”
Cause I’m superman today.”
I scoop that boy right into my arms,
And this is what I say:

You don’t need a cape to be a hero
You’ve got all the special powers that you need
Your smile’s enough to save the world from evil
And you’ll always be superman to me

Grandma’s Words

In the beginning was the word... ~Genesis       We do not live in Grandma’s world of words, and neither did grandma live in her grandma’s world of words and on and on and so on in a downwards devolution through untold millennia. From primal grunts, whistles and...

Fenn Speaks…

I am You, and You are me... Give a damn & figure it out        I feel like one of my students: it’s the night before my big presentation at All-school-meeting, and I still don’t know what I am going to talk about. I just know I am supposed to talk about me......

Out of the Forge: April 13, 2017

In my forty years or so of actively singing and playing folk music and writing songs, I have played together with a remarkably narrow list of musical partners: Rogue, Wally and Barry with camp songs and Hatrack and Seth with literally everything. These last few years...

Know Thyself…

Writing a Metacognition Know Thyself… Explore, Assess, Reflect & Rethink If we don’t learn from what we do, we learn little of real value. If we don’t make the time to explore, reflect and rethink our ways of doing things we will never grow, evolve and reach our...

Thanksgiving

I am surprised sometimes by the suddenness of November: beauty abruptly shed to a common nakedness— grasses deadened by hoarfrost, persistent memories of people I’ve lost. It is left to those of us dressed in the hard barky skin of experience to insist on a decorum...

Goathouse

Goat house In reaching for the scythe I’m reminded of the whetstone and the few quick strokes by which it was tested-- the hardness of hot August; the burning of ticks off dog backs. It’s winter now in this garage made barn, and the animals seem only curious that I’d...

Weekend Custody

Jesse calls up this morning—
“You can come downstairs now;
You see the grapefruit bowl?
Well, I fixed it all;
I fixed everything for you.”

Everything’s for you…

“Let me help you make the coffee,
Momma says you drink it too.
I can’t reach the stove,
But I can pour it, though—
What’s it like living alone?”

All You Need is Love

    The day grew warm today, as did my mood. I did a couple of shows at my school’s diversity day. It was good to see girls there and the obvious racial differences. It was comforting to see a sea of color with a smattering of white instead of the other way around. My...

Welcome

I, on my side, require of every writer, first or last, a simple and sincere account of his own life, and not merely what he has heard of other men's lives; some such account as he would send to his kindred from a distant land... ~Henry David Thoreau, Walden I’ve...

Weeds

  Somewhere locked in this choke of weeds spread like a mangy carpet is the hardened vine of Pipo’s Concord Grape he planted in an eager spring three years ago. Gasping for air and sun and water perhaps it has found some way to hide from my flailing hoe and the...

Crows & Swallows Release

There is seldom a red-carpet celebration when a book of poetry is released, so I will keep this a quiet and humble affair. My newest book of poetry, “Crows & Swallows” is now on iBooks, so fresh you can almost smell the ink. My business model is unchanged: It is a...

The English Soldier

There is a soldier dressed in ancient English wool guarding the entrance to the inn. He is lucky for this cool night awaiting the pomp of the out of town wedding party. He is paid to be unmoved by the bride's stunning beauty or her train of lesser escorts. He will not...

No Dad To Come Home To

Rain’s falling outside of Boston—
Thank God I’m not working tonight.
I’ve got six of my own,
And a stepdaughter at home,
And a momma keeping things right.
I wonder if they’re at the table
With their puzzles, their papers and pens?
When I get off the highway
And pull in that driveway,
Will they run to the window again?

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