Ballad Break

Anyone who has poked around on this blog knows that I can get excited about pretty much any kind of music, but those who really know me, know that my first love is the mountain ballad of Appalachia. I came to this music not because I was a child of the Appalachian foothills, which I am, nor because my mother sang them to me when I was a child (she did sing to me but not these songs). There was a time in my life not too long ago when I realized I was truly lost. I had rekindled my love of music, but otherwise, I had lost my way, lost track of who I was, and every day lost more of my spirit, my mind, my vigor, my passion. I had lost ways to save my marriage, and I had lost my mother. Either I would give up and go on asleep as I had been, or try to get my life on the right path.

Then, on my birthday, one of my best friends gave me a copy of the sleeper movie, "Songcatcher". The epiphany unleashed in the protagonist, a British musicologist named Dr. Lily Penleric, when she met with the real power of the mountain ballad, grabbed me with such force that I barely finished watching the movie before I was off and delving into every corner of the history and practice of this music, which in fact did not originate in the mountains, but across the pond, in the land of my ancestors, Great Britain. (An American scholar named Francis Child catalogued about 400 of them during the late 19th century, and they are often referred to as the Child ballads.)

One of the most poignant of these ballads is Pretty Saro. It’s a beautiful song about a true love turned away because of circumstances. Like all of the ballads, there are hundreds of versions of this song, and it’s been recorded many times. I’ve heard renditions by Iris Dement and by my friend John Doyle. The version below is closest to the rendition Dement performed in the film.
I’ll be sharing many more of these jewels in posts to come, hopefully with the proper audio. There are many champions of this music and I’ll do my best to bring them to you. Meanwhile, see what Pretty Saro’s lover has to say.

When I first come to this country in eighteen and forty nine
I saw many fair lovers, but I never saw mine
I viewéd all around me, I found I was quite alone
And me a poor stranger and a long way from home.

My true love she won't have me and this I understand
She wants a freeholder and I've got no land
But I could maintain her on silver and gold
And as many of the fine things as my love's house could hold

Fare you well to old father. Fare you well to mother too.
I'm going for to ramble this wide world all through
And when I get weary, I'll sit down and cry
And I'll think of Pretty Saro, my darling, my dear.

Well I wish I was a poet, could write some fine hand
I would write my love a letter that she might understand.
I'd send it by the waters where the islands overflow
And I'd think of my darling wherever she'd go.

Way down in some lonesome valley. Way down in some lonesome grove
Where the small birds does whistle, their notes to increase
My love she is slender, both proper and neat
And I wouldn't have no better pastimes than to be with my sweet.

Well I wish I was a turtle dove, had wings and could fly
Just now to my love's lodging tonight I'd draw nigh
And in her lily-white arms I'd lie there all night
And I'd watch the little windows for the dawning of day.

Well I strolled through the mountains, I strolled through the vale
I strolled to forget her, but it was all in vain.
On the banks of Ocoee, on the mount of said brow
Where I once loved her dearly and I don't hate her now.

Now if that doesn't make you yearn for a drink, what will?