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Thread: Bury me beneath the willow lyrics

  1. #1

    Default Bury me beneath the willow lyrics

    I have a question about the origin and lyrics of the song 'Bury Me Beneath the Willow'.
    Is there (was there) any particular reason that the Stanley Brothers chose to sing that song using the pronoun 'He'? ("So HE will know where I am sleeping and perhaps HE'LL wait for me" etc.)

    I only ask because every other version I've ever heard uses "She" when sung by a man, and "He" when the song is performed by a female.

    I'm not trying to start some kind of rediculous controversy here over what might be offensive, politically correct (or incorrect). I'm just wondering if there was a reason they might have done that. Or, has the subject ever even been discussed/written about? Is (was) there someone with copyright to the lyrics or was it in Public Domain? Was this just the 'usual' way to treat traditional songs/lyrics in the past?

    I haven't read any of the bios of the Stanley brothers. I do know that at least one 'mystery' lyric was discussed concerning Bill Monroe in the book "Can't You Hear Me Callin'". If I recall correctly, Bill instructed his band singers to sing "A million times I lloved you BESS" as opposed to BEST.

    Thanks to any who might shed light on this. I'm just curious I guess. Whenever I perform an old song in public, I like to do it in a way that reflects best upon the original artist. Learning S.B.'s songs by listening to Skaggs or Rice is fine, but I always try to go back and hear how it was done by the 'real-deal'. Every time I hear the Stanley Bros. sing that 'Bury Me' song I wonder...what the heck were they thinking?

  2. #2
    Innocent Bystander JeffD's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bury me beneath the willow lyrics

    If I am not mistaken the Carter Family sang that with the "he" and "him". That would be what, the late 20s. They got the song from Bradley Kincaid who collected it from mountain folks.

    So its not unlikely that the Stanley Brothers were just sticking to the most original lyrics.

    Others more expert than me will clear this up.
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    Mando accumulator allenhopkins's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bury me beneath the willow lyrics

    I'd also agree, and say the Stanleys were covering the Carter Family's Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow version. Here's a quote from Maybelle Carter:

    “That was a song we had sang all our lives. We first heard the song at a family get-together and decided to learn it. We did learn the words and sang it at all our family parties and get-togethers. The song became quite popular so when we recorded for RCA Victor in 1927–we recorded “Bury Me Beneath The Willow ” on our first recording session in Bristol , Tennessee. The original version of the song was written by Bradley Kincaid.”

    Other sources suggest the song's older, a late-19th-century "heart song" that Kincaid adopted; apparently a sheet music version dates to a year when he was 14 years old, making his authorship unlikely.

    Oh, and Smith's Bill Monroe bio suggests that Can't You Hear Me Callin' was written for Monroe's lover Bessie Lee Mauldin, hence the "Bess" in the chorus rather than "best." However, I wouldn't read any implications into the Stanleys' singing, even if it's from the "woman's viewpoint." There are quite a few songs where singers have "crossed genders" in the lyrics; I've heard several male singers do I Never Will Marry without adding the useful gender-swapping "I heard a fair maiden/Make a pitiful sound (or cry)" verse, with the results that they're singing "I'll be no man's wife" on the chorus. And who can forget (not me, surely) Joan Baez lamenting the loss of "faithless Flora" in Lily of the West?

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  6. #4

    Default Re: Bury me beneath the willow lyrics

    I don't know very much about the Stanley Brothers. But sometimes when a song is handed down from so far back, it just seems fine to ignore gender. I have sang a lot of old country blues tunes with guitar, and as a woman, I have found it easier just to sing them as they were written for the most part. "All my life I've been a travelin' man, staying alone and doing the best I can." It does rhyme better the original way!

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    Registered User Charley wild's Avatar
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    Default Re: Bury me beneath the willow lyrics

    I think is a pretty common practice for men or women to use the opposite gender in a song if they take it from someone who did it that way. I have heard dozens of singers at jams, festivals, etc. do it. Women singing "Banks of the Ohio", men doing "Butcher's Boy", etc.

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