Music Without A Color

In the Pines, an American folk song first recorded in 1926 by Doctor Coble “Dock” Walsh, old-time banjo player from North Carolina.

Most folks agree that this song (also known as Where Did You Sleep Last Night) is a mash-up of at least two or three older ballads including Black Girl and The Longest Train, both thought to have been written sometime around the 1870s.

Probably made most famous by Lead Belly in the 1940s, the song has also been notably performed by bands such as Nirvana, during their MTV Unplugged session in 1993.

This song and recording is particularly interesting, because it was recorded before record companies had split old time music into genres, in order to market it to specific audiences – with some music identified as being “by whites” and “for whites”, and other music identified as being intrinsically “black”.

Before the Great Depression, there were no clear lines separating folk songs, blues songs, dance tunes, murder ballads, western swing, or songs of the Gospel and salvation, and the rural poor who enjoyed this music came from all ethnic groups – including American Indian peoples.

The music of Huddie William Ledbetter, aka Lead Belly, is a case in point.  For much of his career, Lead Belly would have been heard singing folk songs – the same folk songs which would later be marketed as “hillbilly” music, and even later, as “country music”.  Between marketing and the tastes of later music enthusiasts, people in the 1960s and 1970s came to see singers like Lead Belly primarily as blues singers.  English rock bands of the 1960s – who were huge fans of American blues recordings – had a huge hand in this, often citing artists such as Lead Belly and Howlin’ Wolf among their influences.

So much so, that when Kurt Cobain introduced this song during Nirvana‘s unplugged session, he wrongly credited Lead Belly as its writer, presuming the song to be a vintage blues number.

The ballad has been variously interpreted as being a song about infidelity, retribution, tragic death, or brutal lynching – its opacity probably part of what makes it so haunting.

*****

In the pines, in the pines where the sun never shined
And I shivered when the cold wind blow

Oh, if I minded what Grandma said, oh were would I’ve been tonight
I’d’ve been in the pines where the sun never shined, and then shiverin’ when the cold wind blows

The longest train I ever saw went down the Georgia line
The engine, it stopped at a six-mile post, the cabin never left the town

Now darling, now darling, don’t tell me no lie. Where did you stay last night?
I stayed in the pines where the sun never shined and I shivered when the cold winds blow

The prettiest little girl that I ever saw was walking down the line
Her hair, it was of a curly type, her cheeks were rosy red

Now darling, now darling, don’t tell me no lie. Where did you stay last night?
I stayed in the pines where the sun never shines and I shivered when the cold winds blow

The train run back one mile from town and killed my girl, you know
Her head was caught in the driver wheel, her body I never could find

Now darling, now darling, don’t tell me no lie. Where did you stay last night?
I stayed in the pines where the sun never shine and I shivered when the cold winds blow

The best of friends has to part some time, then why not you and I

Now darling, oh darling, don’t tell me no lie. Where did you stay last night?
I stayed in the pines where the sun never shine and I shivered when the cold winds blow

Oh, a transfer station has brought me here, take a-money for to carry me away

Now darling, now darling, don’t tell me no lie. Where did you stay last night?
I stayed in the pines where the sun never shine and I shivered when the cold winds blow

#ethnomusicology #DockWalsh #LeadBelly #Nirvana