While at the oh-so-wonderful Cowan Creek Music Week in the oh-so-grand Hills of Eastern Kentucky last week, I had the great joy of listening to WMMT radio, the public radio station that sprung out of Appalshop and identifies itself as the Voice of the Hillbilly Nation, amongst other titles (check out the website - you'll soon be able to hear part of the concert we heard as part of the Music Week streaming on line).
It is one of the best stations I've ever had the opportunity to listen to (and we have some pretty good public radio stations here in Louisville in WFPL and WFPK). They are very eclectic with a songlist of thousands, plus they do a good bit of airtime to "Mountain Music," which is hard to find anywhere else.
I bring that up to say that I heard on WMMT what must be the saddest song ever. Ridiculously tragic. So sad that you sit there crying and at the same time laughing it is so idiotically horrible.
I didn't catch the name but I believe it was Echo Mountain, or had Echo Mountain in the title. I found some references to it, I believe, online but could not find the lyrics.
The gist of the story is this (sung in the high lonesome sounds of Old Timey music):
There is a married couple who greatly want a child but who'd been unable to thus far. One day, a dog wanders in to their life and he is their great joy. They love him like their own child. And then, ecstatically, they are blessed with a child! And there was great joy on Echo Mountain. They have and love their child and their dog - who could ask for anything more?
Wait for it...
One day, while out farming, the leave their beloved baby in the care of their trusted hound. When they return, the baby is missing and the dog is covered with blood!!
What a tragedy! There are tears on Echo Mountain, for the couple who've lost their baby and now must kill their beloved dog! And the innocent always pay for the mistakes we make...
Sad huh? But wait! There's more!
So the husband in great grief puts the bloody dog down. It is about then that they hear the baby crying - it had been hidden in a pantry door! Not only that, but outside the opened back door, they discover the two dead wolves that their trusted dog must have killed to protect the baby!!
And there are tears on Echo Mountain...And the innocent always pay for the mistakes we make...
Is that impossibly sad or what? And of course, the song format was much more stirring than my stiff reinterpretation of it. Anyone familiar with it?
One other song I heard (this one in a sort of simple klezmer melody) was by Holly Near, called I Ain't Afraid. The chorus goes:
I ain't afraid of your Yahweh, I ain't afraid of your Allah,
I ain't afraid of your Jesus, I'm afraid of what you do in the name of your God.
I ain't afraid of your churches, I ain't afraid of your temples,
I ain't afraid of your prayers, I'm afraid of what you do in the name of your God.
And on it goes. Great stuff. (By the way, that one can be found as a free MP3 online and I recommend a listening to.)
7 comments:
That Holly Near song is excellent. Blogged and shared. Thanks for posting it.
Thanks, catastrophe, for spreading the wealth around.
Dan, have you ever listened to Jethro Tull much?
I've been checking out some of Ian Anderson's solo stuff that I've missed over the years for the past couple of days. I REALLy think you would like it. All acoustic--some in the minstrel style, some with orchestration, all with his BRILLIANT flute playing and thoughtful lyrics!
An album called "The Secret Language of Birds" would be worth at least sampling.
If you get a chance, check it out and let me know what you think!
I thought Tull was a rocker? (excuse my ignorance.)
Echo Mountain is a retelling of the tale of Saint Guifort (the dog saint) -- take a look at http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/guinefort.html
an extract ...
"When preaching there against sorcery and hearing confessions, I heard many women confess that they had carried their children to St. Guinefort. I thought he was some saint. I made inquiries and at last heard that he was a certain greyhound killed in the following way. In the diocese of Lyons, close to the vill of the nuns called Villeneuve, on the land belonging to the lord of Villars-en-Dombe, there was a certain castle whose lord had a baby son from his wife. But when the lord and lady and the nurse too had left the house, leaving the child alone in his cradle, a very large snake entered the house and made for the child's cradle. The greyhound, who had remained there, saw this, dashed swiftly under the cradle in pursuit, knocking it over, and attacked the snake with its fangs and answering bite with bite. In the end the dog killed it and threw it far away from the child's cradle which he left all bloodied as was his mouth and head, with the snake's blood, and stood there by the cradle all beaten about by the snake. When the nurse came back and saw this, she thought the child had been killed and eaten by the dog and so gave out an almighty scream. The child's mother heard this, rushed in, saw and thought the same and she too screamed. Then the knight similarly once he got there believed the same, and drawing his sword killed the dog. Only then did they approach the child and find him unharmed, sleeping sweetly in fact. On further investigation, they discovered the snake torn up by the dog's bites and dead. Now that they had learned the truth of the matter, they were embarrassed (dolentes) that they had so unjustly killed a dog so useful to them and threw his body into a well in front of the castle gate, and placing over it a very large heap of stones they planted trees nearby as a memorial of the deed."
The hound is variously known as Gelert or Killhart in other places, but the story remains essentially the same, and has appeared in poems and in Brewer's Dictionary of Phrase and Fable
Love the song ...
It is a great song, thanks for the info (wow. who knew?)
Betty left a comment, saying...
I recently came accross your blog and have been reading along. I thought I would leave my first comment. I dont know what to say except that I have enjoyed reading. Nice blog. I will keep visiting this blog very often.
Betty
I entered it manually here because there was a link to a business at the bottom. Sorry, Betty, I try to avoid such links, but you're welcome here anytime.
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