The Civil Wars

With two Grammy Awards to their credit this year, The Civil Wars hardly need our blog to lift them out of obscurity…to the extent that we are able to lift anybody out of obscurity for anyone.  Good grief, they have Taylor Swift on their side.  For a few reasons, some thematic and some accidental, I thought it would be interesting to give a listen to The Civil Wars’ “Barton Hollow” this week.  We won’t be tracing down variations and obscure performances of this song as passed down through the hands of generations, but will do a little bit more of connecting it back to its forebears.

I’ve been thinking over the course of our recent posts that as far afield as we’ve gone in discussing themes that pop up in songs relating violence, we still often refer back to the songs we did very early on in the year.  Songs like “Fair Ellender,” “Omie Wise,” “Young Hunting,” and “Two Sisters,” represent the songs that, with some degree of obviousness, were first and foremost on our minds when we got underway.  They are not so much guide posts as they are our compass for this passing through this territory.  

“Barton Hollow” is of very recent vintage, but successfully presents an heir to the tradition of many of the older murder ballads that we’ve explored.   I thought a few more “bloggy” and somewhat less archaeological or “audiographical” posts this week might be enlightening and/or entertaining, and a way to track back to at least one or two of these themes.

Stream in Jackson County, Alabama

Also, the thought occurred to me in writing last week’s posts about death and redemption, and making reference to how Jesus figures appear in songs, that I might be creating the impression that I’m organizing this material for religious or confessional purposes.  My intent in focusing on these themes is literary/cultural, but I have an academic background in religious studies, so my scanners are often set to those frequencies.  I think the religious themes many of these songs invoke pervade the culture, often in subtle ways; and this is one of the reasons that these songs resonate with people–even if they don’t participate in those religious traditions.  

And, as I think I’ve said before, when you go deep enough down, it’s certainly a possibility that both these songs and the religious narratives they invoke both resonate because they touch on the same compelling aspects of the human experience.  Religious traditions (be they Christian, pagan, or a mix of those or others) just give us the metaphors.  The metaphors give us a way to connect with truth and meaning; that they get shared in song connects us to one another.

Nevertheless, it’s not lost on me that I set up a blog that focuses on death and meaning and the stories of people’s deaths and what those death stories might mean for me. We’ll get to more of the issues of religious themes in the next post.  Just as this is not a blog about murder or crime, it is also not a blog about religion; it is a blog about music (and, I suppose, by extension, everything that music is about…).

Today, I simply want to introduce “Barton Hollow” to our on-going discussion.  There’s probably not much need to do a close reading of what’s going on in the song, but I would like to point out a few things about why I think it’s very successful, and I’d also like to spend a little bit of time relating it to some of our earlier subjects.

Here’s “Barton Hollow” as performed by The Civil Wars at the Grand Ole Opry earlier this year.



“Barton Hollow” by The Civil Wars (Spotify)  (Lyrics)

As you heard in the YouTube clip, “Barton Hollow” refers to a real, physical place in John Paul White’s neck of the woods.   Suffice it to say, Barton Hollow, Alabama is a forested valley area near Nickajack Lake and the Tennessee River, very close to the state lines of Tennessee and Georgia.  There are a couple of cemeteries nearby.  You do the math.

In the next post, I’ll spend some describing the “real,” metaphorical place (or time) where this song resides. 

Where’s the murder?

Right!  In addition to being not a ballad, the song doesn’t depict an explicit crime–just the aftermath.  The protagonist identifies himself as a “dead man walking.”  We’re thereby given leave to think that he’s killed someone.  Despite the narrative evidence, the song rather effectively isolates the psychological and emotional truth of the protagonist’s situation, after the deed.  In that sense, it’s a song operating in the realm that murder ballads operate,  and operating well at that; but it might be considered an “anti-ballad,” given that it paints around the action and just gives us the feelings. Nevertheless, it is disciplined in “showing, not telling.”  This anguished, internal dialogue doesn’t sew things up for us.  

But, there is still the psychological truth within the song, and themes that we have heard before in “Down in the Willow Garden” of remorse and anticipation of the Devil taking his due; or in Rorey Carroll‘s “Head Hung” of being both haunted and stunned by what one has done–estranged from oneself.  Our perpetrator wonders whether the full moon forced his hand, or whether he was driven by greed for the “unmarked hundred grand.”  Incidentally, there’s also a little bit of “The Mercy Seat” in “Barton Hollow,” and elements of some versions of “Frankie and Johnny,” and maybe just a little hint of “Pancho and Lefty.”  (The official bio for “The Civil Wars” notes that both Johnny Cash and Townes Van Zandt were early influences on White, via his father’s musical interests.)

“Barton Hollow” stands out, to my ear, on the album Barton Hollow for its sound–very much sounding like it’s from the geographic place in which it is set–Deep South, on the borders between states, cut through with streams.  It’s the kind of terrain featured in Jim White’s The Search for the Wrong-Eyed Jesus.

The Civil Wars operate in the genre termed by the music industry as as “Americana” or “Roots Music.”  This song hits squarely in the center of that genre to my ear.  The whole album, however, is consistent in using relatively spare arrangements when it comes to instrumentation.    Williams and White’s style of duet singing involves a kind of “active listening” that makes their live performances particularly compelling to watch and to hear–nowhere near as spare or austere as their instrumental arrangements.  The harmonies are not necessarily traditional, and the melody and harmony lines don’t exactly follow traditional or old-time patterns, but it works for them, and seems emblematic of the kind of productive creative tension they appear to cherish.

This song spotlight article describes the genesis of the song, and fleshes out some of the elements that make it compelling–the spiritual overtones, the timelessness.  If you’re interested in some of the ins and outs of the songcraft going into it, it’s a good stop.

In addition to the religious themes, what I hope to get to in my next post is a spotlight not just on the song, but on its performance. Indeed, I can point back to a particular moment that put this song on my radar for blogging.  So stay tuned. I also expect there will be a third post later in the week that will raise some themes with the potential to more than slake our thirst for redemption.  But, for right now, we remain where “Barton Hollow” leaves us, a very low place indeed.

OK, so maybe not quite this low. (photo by Allister Ann)