tatteberryredux

O’ Shenandoah

THE HISTORY OF THE OHIO RIVER VALLEY is of course, tied to rivers. Not just the Ohio, but a plethora of smaller rivers flow into it, bring with them the stories and songs of the regions the rivers meander through. The Ohio was the river that brought the songs to mass popularity.

Shenandoah’s lyrics come from fur trappers working the Missouri River, and often incorporate references to the Native American Chief of the same name. These fur trappers, as well as the flatboat pilots traveling down the Missouri brought the song to the Mississippi. It then made its way down that river to the ports on the Gulf of Mexico, and to the ocean going ships of the time. By the mid nineteenth century it was a sea shanty known throughout the world.

Fur trappers by necessity, had to get along with the Native American tribes, and it wasn’t unusual for them to marry from those same tribes. It’s often mistakenly thought that the river referred to is the Shenandoah River, but that lies mainly in Virginia, far away from the wide Missouri.

There is also more than a bit of the Negro spiritual in the melody, which is to be expected, as many slaves were forced to work the rivers, and used their songs as a form of shanty, to help keep the men working in unison.

We nicked the lyrics from Pete Seeger, who is known for another river altogether

Shenandoah
Traditional, United States, early nineteenth century

Oh Shenandoah, I long to hear you,
Look Away you rolling river,
Oh Shenandoah I long to hear you,
Away I’m bound away,
‘Cross the wide Missouri

Oh Shenandoah, I love your daughter,
Look away you rolling river,
Oh Shenandoah I love your daughter,
Look away I’m bound away,

‘Cross the wide Missouri
Oh Shenandoah, I’m bound to leave you,
Look away you rolling river,
Oh Shenandoah, I’m bound to leave you,
Away I’m bound away, ‘Cross the wide Missouri

Listen To The Mockingbird

THIS IS THE ONE SONG with a direct connection to Carmi, Illinois’ bicentennial. Which was the reason we were recording folk songs to begin with. In the booklet for Carmi’s sesquicentennial, the author, J. Robert Smith referred to the song being sung in Carmi’s parlors, accompanied by the pump organ.

The music was written by a black street musician by the name of Richard Milburn. The lyrics were written by one Alice Hawthorne, which was a nom de plume for a fellow named Septimus Winner.

The song was written in 1855, and the sheet music for it went on to sell twenty million copies. Even Abraham Lincoln loved it. The lyricist however, didn’t love Lincoln, and also wrote a song urging Americans to vote for Gen. George McClellan, Lincoln’s opponent when he ran for re-election to the presidency.

This version kicks off with Fred Lowery’s performance in 1939, complete with bird calls. It’s part of the charm of the song that despite its tragic lyrics, it was given what can only be described as a spritely melody. Sometimes you have to laugh to keep from Crying

Listen to the Mockingbird

Lyrics by Alice Hawthorne, Music by Richard Milburn, United States, 1855

Last night I dreamed of my Halley,
Of my Halley, my sweet Halley,
Last night I dreamed of my Halley,
For the thought of her is one that never dies

She’s sleeping now in the valley,
In the valley, my sweet Halley,
She’s sleeping now in the valley,
And the Mockingbird is singing where she lies

Listen to the Mockingbird, listen to the Mockingbird,
Oh the Mockingbird is singing oe’er her grave,
Listen to the Mockingbird, listen to the Mockingbird,
Still singing where the yellow roses grow

How well do I yet remember,
I remember, I remember,
How well do I yet remember,
For the thought of her is one that never dies

It was in that sweet September,
In September, I remember,
It was in that sweet September,
That the Mockingbird was singing far and wide

Listen to the Mockingbird, listen to the Mockingbird,
Oh the Mocking bird still singing oe’er her grave,
Listen to the Mockingbird, listen to the Mockingbird,
Oh the Mockingbird still singing in the spring

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Conqueror Worm: The play is the tragedy, ‘Man’ And its hero, the Conqueror Worm

Poe’s The Conqueror Worm can be found in his tale Ligeia, a story of death, resurrection, opium abuse, more death and madness. The poem depicts a performance of mimes, controlled by vast, shapeless forms offstage. High above angels watch and weep, and at last an evil, formless shape crawls center stage and eats the hapless mimes, and as the curtain comes down, the title of the play, Man is revealed, and the hero, The Conqueror Worm introduced.

Poe’s mimes represent man, who given the illusion of self determination, are in fact, ruled by dark forces unseen and unstoppable. Even those deities and their minions in which we place hope, in Poe’s The Conqueror Worm are helpless to intervene. Poe proclaims we all meet the same fate, certain and hideous death, and the inevitable decomposition of what remains of us.

https://youtu.be/JSojK9fOBo0

Download Edgar Allan Poe’s Deep In Earth on Bandcamp

Learn more about The Conqueror Worm, the album by Folkswitch

Edgar Allan Poe’s The Conqueror Worm

Lo! ’t is a gala night

Within the lonesome latter years!

An angel throng, bewinged, bedight

In veils, and drowned in tears,

Sit in a theatre, to see

A play of hopes and fears,

While the orchestra breathes fitfully

The music of the spheres.

Mimes, in the form of God on high,

Mutter and mumble low,

And hither and thither fly—

Mere puppets they, who come and go

At bidding of vast formless things

That shift the scenery to and fro,

Flapping from out their Condor wings

Invisible Wo!

That motley drama—oh, be sure

It shall not be forgot!

With its Phantom chased for evermore

By a crowd that seize it not,

Through a circle that ever returneth in

To the self-same spot,

And much of Madness, and more of Sin,

And Horror the soul of the plot.

But see, amid the mimic rout,

A crawling shape intrude!

A blood-red thing that writhes from out

The scenic solitude!

It writhes!—it writhes!—with mortal pangs

The mimes become its food,

And seraphs sob at vermin fangs

In human gore imbued.

Out—out are the lights—out all!

And, over each quivering form,

The curtain, a funeral pall,

Comes down with the rush of a storm,

While the angels, all pallid and wan,

Uprising, unveiling, affirm

That the play is the tragedy, “Man,”

And its hero, the Conqueror Worm.

Edgar Allan Poe’s To One In Paradise: For, alas! alas! with me The light of Life is o’er!

Poe’s To One In Paradise tells of the sorrow felt when you lose the connection to the one you love, essentially being shut out of paradise. Poe creates an almost Biblical tone, comparisons to the Garden of Eden and man’s fall from God’s grace are inevitable.

Has his love left this life to go to paradise, or is he simply deprived of her company, Poe’s To One In Paradise is vague on the matter? What he isn’t vague about is the loss – the light of life is over. For Poe’s love was all to him, as it is to all of us.

Poe’s To One In Paradise draws a picture of nature as Eden, but it’s nature with the hand of man upon it … a fountain, a shrine, as well as the hand of the supernatural … fairy fruits and flowers.

The author walks through life in a trance, an unending sorrow, for even in his dreams, he sees the world through her eyes, and finds life seeing the world as she does, following in her footsteps, and who of us haven’t done the same thing? There’s something that draws us to memory when we retrace the steps we took together, which she now takes alone.

Once again there is no hope, no anticipation of a second chance, just the certainty that all is lost and all is over in Poe’s To One In Paradise.

https://youtu.be/zwek_53ZR9I

Thou wast that all to me, love,

For which my soul did pine—

A green isle in the sea, love,

A fountain and a shrine,

All wreathed with fairy fruits and flowers,

And all the flowers were mine.

Ah, dream too bright to last!

Ah, starry Hope! that didst arise

But to be overcast!

A voice from out the Future cries,

“On! on!”—but o’er the Past

(Dim gulf!) my spirit hovering lies

Mute, motionless, aghast!

For, alas! alas! with me

The light of Life is o’er!

No more—no more—no more—

(Such language holds the solemn sea

To the sands upon the shore)

Shall bloom the thunder-blasted tree,

Or the stricken eagle soar!

And all my days are trances,

And all my nightly dreams

Are where thy grey eye glances,

And where thy footstep gleams—

In what ethereal dances,

By what eternal streams.

Click to purchase To One In Paradise on Bandcamp

Click to learn more about The Conqueror Worm by Folkswitch

Edgar Allan Poe’s A Dream Within a Dream: You are not wrong, who deem, That my days have been a dream

Analyzing Poe’s A Dream Within A Dream is an exercise in futility. Poe’s intentions can’t be known, but it doesn’t stop people from trying.

Read straightforward you get a sense that Poe is on the verge of loss, he’s kissing his loved one goodbye, and if there’s a sense that he’s accepted it, it’s because accepted the reality, or unreality of life. You can’t live a dream for long, because it’s simply a dream within the dream that is life.

In A Dream Within A Dream, everything slips away, like sand through the fingertips, you can’t hold onto anything, particularly something that is fluid. A dream within a dream is fluid by nature, for dreams aren’t bound by nature’s law. Instead they build upon the imagination, where there are no laws.

Life, like sand held in the fingertips beneath the waves is always being sucked into the deep, washed away by nature’s tides. Man has the ability to imagine anything he wants, and in the imagination those dreams can live. But in life, we are bound by nature’s laws, which deem in the end, all is lost.

https://youtu.be/zFe8zhpuOXE

Download Edgar Allan Poe’s Spirits of the Dead on Bandcamp

Learn more about The Conqueror Worm, the album by Folkswitch

A Dream Within A Dream

Take this kiss upon the brow!
And, in parting from you now,
Thus much let me avow —
You are not wrong, who deem
That my days have been a dream;

Yet if hope has flown away
In a night, or in a day,
In a vision, or in none,
Is it therefore the less gone?
All that we see or seem
Is but a dream within a dream.

I stand amid the roar
Of a surf-tormented shore,
And I hold within my hand
Grains of the golden sand —

How few! yet how they creep
Through my fingers to the deep,
While I weep — while I weep!
O God! Can I not grasp
Them with a tighter clasp?
O God! can I not save
One from the pitiless wave?
Is all that we see or seem
But a dream within a dream?

Edgar Allan Poe’s Annabel Lee: But we loved with a love that was more than love

Annabel Lee was Poe’s last poem. Legends abound that it’s based on a story from Charleston, South Carolina, but that’s unlikely. In reality he wrote it about his wife, recently deceased.

It’s the story of a man haunted by love, and follows love into the grave. It’s an exploration of obsessive love, doomed love that keep the mind busy for some time, working it out for ourselves.

Holding onto your love after the death, literal or metaphoric of the one you love, is a romantic notion. It’s one we hold true in the beginning of relationships, and perhaps we never really think of the lessons of Annabel Lee till we’re forced to. Annabel Lee suffered physical death, but any permanent separation to the one left behind is a kind of death as well. One doesn’t have to be a widow or widower to identify with the longing and loss found in Annabel Lee.

Nor does one have to experience or even long to experience the implied necrophilia of Poe’s Annabel Lee. But who amongst haven’t longed to hold in our arms one long and forever lost to us, and remember a time when we believed that even death could never break our love.

Poe did return to the pursuit, for he did love beautiful women, but perhaps his last poem shone a light into his heart, which said his heart really wasn’t into it. But instead lie at night with his bride, in that sepulcher by the sea.

https://youtu.be/Vnjk0yWfyNw

Download Edgar Allan Poe’s Deep In Earth on Bandcamp

Learn more about The Conqueror Worm, the album by Folkswitch

Annabel Lee

It was many and many a year ago,

In a kingdom by the sea,

That a maiden there lived whom you may know

By the name of Annabel Lee;

And this maiden she lived with no other thought

Than to love and be loved by me.

I was a child and she was a child,

In this kingdom by the sea,

But we loved with a love that was more than love—

I and my Annabel Lee—

With a love that the wingèd seraphs of Heaven

Coveted her and me.

And this was the reason that, long ago,

In this kingdom by the sea,

A wind blew out of a cloud, chilling

My beautiful Annabel Lee;

So that her highborn kinsmen came

And bore her away from me,

To shut her up in a sepulchre

In this kingdom by the sea.

The angels, not half so happy in Heaven,

Went envying her and me—

Yes!—that was the reason (as all men know,

In this kingdom by the sea)

That the wind came out of the cloud by night,

Chilling and killing my Annabel Lee.

But our love it was stronger by far than the love

Of those who were older than we—

Of many far wiser than we—

And neither the angels in Heaven above

Nor the demons down under the sea

Can ever dissever my soul from the soul

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

For the moon never beams, without bringing me dreams

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And the stars never rise, but I feel the bright eyes

Of the beautiful Annabel Lee;

And so, all the night-tide, I lie down by the side

Of my darling—my darling—my life and my bride,

In her sepulchre there by the sea—

In her tomb by the sounding sea.