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O The Wind And The Rain

from Bring Me Home by Peggy Seeger

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NOTE BY ELISABETH HIGGINS NULL:


Peggy says she learned this American version of ancient ballad, The Two Sisters (Child #10) from her brother Mike Seeger. "The Two Sisters" first appeared in print as a broadside in 1656 as "The Miller and The King's Daughter" and related folktale types one can group loosely as "The Singing Bone" have been collected from many countries, especially in northern Europe. Mike picked the song up from Kilby Snow, the Appalachian autoharp master, whom Mike recorded in the mid-sixties and introduced to the broader folk revival. If you listen to Mike's version, his autoharp certainly captures the spirit and much of the technique of Snow. On the other hand, Mike's words are quite different.

Kilby Snow's song, sung quickly and dispassionately to a lively accompaniment, omits a key part of "The Two Sisters:" he eliminates the sororicide and, in a typical "murdered sweetheart" rendition, tells us how a lover murdered his girl friend when they went "fishing on a hot summer day." The lover proposes and then batters his sweetheart to death, throwing her in the river where she floats to the mill pond. The miller fishes her out and makes a fiddle from portions of her body. The fiddle, as it always does when appearing in this ballad, plays just one tune, "Crying The Dreadful Wind and Rain." Snow says he learned the song from his grandfather, a Cherokee, when he was very little. He reconstructed what he heard from memory. This may help explain the atypical elimination of the sisters from the plot.

Mike Seeger restores the sororicide motif and has the oldest sister pushing the youngest into the river because a suitor gives the younger girl preferential treatment. As the victim drifts down to the mill pond someone cries "father, father there swims a swan." The miller retrieves the corpse and lays it on the bank to dry. A fiddler comes along and fashions a fiddle "with a sound that would melt a heart of stone" from parts of the girl's body.

Peggy's version takes the tune of the other two versions and retains most of his story. She sings it as a modal dirge set against a drone with soft touches of harmony on the refrain. The focus is on sibling rivalry and the descent of "two sweet sisters side by side" into jealousy and murder. After the fiddle is built and plays its woeful tune, we suddenly view life from the drowned woman's perspective: "Yonder is my sister sitting on a rock/tying my Johnny a true lover's knot." The fiddle has not specifically alerted others to the crime, ultimately bringing the murderer to justice. It rarely does so in American versions of "The Two Sisters." In a song where evil is unavenged, Peggy increases our discomfort by having the murdered girl witness her sister's amorous victory.

How does a modern performer come to grips with the horror of a ballad like this? Lydia Hammesley, in her "A Resisting Performance of a Traditional Appalachian Murder Ballad; Giving Voice to 'Pretty Polly,' " (Women & Music, Vol. 9, 2005) talks about how a singer can resist the violence against women, so common in traditional songs, not by rewriting or doing away with it but by "taking on the violence on its own terms and in its own context." She underscores this point:

Resistance to a traditional song, or any song from outside of our present context, does not necessarily come about by performing it in a way that reflects a contemporary reality or aesthetic. Indeed, performing a traditional ballad in this way runs the risk of being misunderstood as a parodic or patronizing rendition. Rather, the possibility for real resistance and dialogue emerges when a performer explicitly works within the reality that the song reflects and within the context from which the song comes.

When we listen to Peggy here, we see that she has done exactly that. As an interpreter of tradition, Peggy has chosen to sing this song straight, with few dynamics and a near drone for accompaniment. By adding a traditional verse or two, she has shifted the focus to the women themselves and has re-sensitized her listeners to the atrocity that has taken place. She does not insert herself into the song as so many modern singers do but has empowered the words to tell themselves with maximum impact.

lyrics

O, THE WIND AND RAIN

words, music: traditional USA
arrangement: Peggy Seeger and Calum MacColl

Early one morning in the month of May
O, the wind and rain.
Two sisters went fishing on a hot summer's day
Cryin' the dreadful wind and rain.

Two sweet sisters, side by side
O, the wind and rain
Both of them want to be Johnny's bride
Cryin' the dreadful wind and rain.

Johnny gave the young one a gold ring, (etc)
Didn't give the older one anything (etc)

The sisters went a-walkin' by the water's brim (etc)
The older one shoved the younger one in (etc)

Shoved her in the river to drown
And watched her as she floated down

She floated on down to the miller's dam
Father, father, there swims a swan

The miller ran for his driftin' hook
And pulled that poor girl from the brook

He laid her on the bank to dry
A fiddler man come walkin' by

He saw that poor girl lyin' there
He took thirty strands of her long yellow hair

He made a fiddle bow of her long yellow hair,
He made fiddle-pegs of her little finger bones

He made a fiddle of her little breast bone
With a sound that could melt a heart of stone,

And the only tune that fiddle could play
The only tune that fiddle would play was

Yonder's my sister sittin' on a rock
Tyin' my Johnny a true-love's knot.

credits

from Bring Me Home, released January 22, 2008

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Peggy Seeger Oxford, UK

Peggy is one of the most influential folk singers on either side of the Atlantic. She is Pete Seeger’s half-sister and Ruth Crawford Seeger’s daughter; her first life partner was the English songwriter Ewan MacColl, who wrote First Time Ever I Saw Your Face for her. She has made more than 22 solo recordings to date. Please check ewanmaccoll.bandcamp.com for other albums featuring Peggy. ... more

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