In addition to writing songs, I also massacre classics…
Ten days from now, on the 2015 Autumnal Equinox, Wednesday, September 23,* A Year of Songs will be 10 years old.
We don’t want to give away too much, but let’s just say that we’ll** be cranking out new content, both music and microfiction, and doing a massive overhaul of the site to make it more streamlined. (In other words, we want it to work better on the stunted little mobile devices most of us now use to view the web.)
More details in coming days.
* Specifically the Fall Equinox will occur at 1:22 a.m. PDT here in coastal California.
** We habitually use the ‘royal’ we. We know it’s lame. We can’t help ourselves. Maybe we’ll try to quit in the next ten days… We’ll just have to see. Frankly, we’re not sanguine about our chances on that. Safety in imaginary numbers.
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).
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
