The Wake

Imagine softly singing a baby to sleep. What song comes to mind? Many people have a favorite childhood hymn they automatically begin to hum, lullabies like “Rock-a-bye Baby.” These songs are so
instilled in American culture that their lyrics are almost completely ignored. The first stanza of “Rocka-
bye Baby,” for instance, is about the wind knocking a baby out of its cradle from the top of a tree! It
is fortunate the baby only needs the soothing harmony to be lulled to sleep; the lyrics would certainly
evoke more nightmares than pleasant dreams.

Rennie Sparks, the wife of Brett Sparks and one of two in the folk duo The Handsome Family, lectured
about this phenomenon of American folk music on campus last week. She discussed old American
classics like “My Darling, Clementine,” “Barbara Allen,” and “Knoxville Girl,” all of which can be referenced as murder ballads. Sparks compares these old folk songs to contemporary rap artists like Ice Cube and Public Enemy. Though the violence in many modern day rap songs is decidedly more blatant and vicious, the idea of violence in American music exists today as it always has.

She began her lecture with playing “Knoxville Girl” by the Louvin Brothers, an upbeat song with banjos and fiddles that begins with what appears to be a sweet love story but ends up with a brutal murder. The killers in the stories always regret it, as they are always the lovers of the victims. Why do we listen to these songs with such fascinated intrigue? How is it that the songs we choose to sing to our children are songs filled with glaring violence? Sparks imagines that perhaps we choose to “ignore the lyrics for the sweet harmony” and sacrifice innocence for subtle moral teachings that the “bad guy” always gets caught.

Not only are the murders without motive, the characters within the stories change throughout. In
“My Darling, Clementine,” Clementine is described as “light she was and like a fairy,” yet once she falls
into the foaming brine, she changes from a clumsy little girl to an unattainable beauty with “ruby lips.”
Sparks also points out, that while the miner sees Clementine drown, he makes no attempt to save her, stating rather that “alas, I was no swimmer.” Sparks suggested that these stories have fantastical qualities, such as the foaming brine Clementine falls into that transforms her into something beautiful, and the river the Knoxville girl is thrown into ages her so she is a young beauty rather than a little girl. Barbara Allen’s grave grows into a briar, and the grave of her lover, William, sprouts roses. Perhaps her unattainable beauty is symbolic of the joys of life while the lovers represent spiteful obstacles present in even the best of moments.

Or perhaps these stories have been around for hundreds of years because no one has been able to analyze entirely the complexity of their meanings. Are they about magic and life or simple morbid curiosity? Do we sing them to children for their honeyed harmonics or their reputation as American classics? Even Rennie Sparks, an accomplished folk singer and ballad researcher doesn’t know, but she
definitely whets the curiosity of anyone who has ever questioned the subject matter of America’s most familiar music.