It’s Public Domain Sunday.

I just declared it.

So, today’s entry is the traditional folk classic (or an abbreviated, radically reworked version thereof), “Tom Dooley,” a song of love, betrayal, murder… and possibly deception and cover-up, depending on what back-story you buy into.

This rather irreverent (and remarkably sloppy) version is a veritable simulation of being stuck in a backroom jam session at a party circa 19-something-or-other with me behind the guitar (and me on some rather chaos-driven bongos… obviously, it’s kind of a cubist, asynchronous simulation).

Internet Archive page for this recording

Tom Dooley

(Traditional)

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you’re bound to die

I met her on the mountain, there I took her life
Met her on the mountain, stabbed her with my knife

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you’re bound to die

This time tomorrow,
reckon where I’ll be
Hadn’t been for Grayson,
I’d-a been in Tennessee

Hang down your head your head Dooley and cry
Hang down your head and cry ah poor boy, ah well-ah
Hang down your head your head Dooley and cry
Poor boy, you’re bound to die

Hang down your head your head Dooley and cry
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head your head Dooley and cry
Poor boy, you’re bound to die

This time tomorrow,
reckon where I’ll be
Down in some lonesome valley
hangin’ from a white oak tree

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you’re bound to die

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you’re bound to die
Poor boy, you’re bound to die
Poor boy, you’re bound to die
Poor boy, you’re bound to die