The Ryman Auditorium, Nashville, Tennessee

[This is the second post this week on “Barton Hollow,” by The Civil Wars.  Read the first one here.  Also, this post is not about the Mick Sterling album Between Saturday Night and Sunday Morning.]

I noted in the previous post that one of the strengths of “Barton Hollow” was its ability to isolate rather effectively the psychological and emotional truth of the protagonist’s situation.  I also said that in this post, I would attempt to locate the real place (and time) where this song exists.

That place and time is the time between Saturday night and Sunday morning.  Usually this metaphor characterizes the transition between excess and debauchery in the former and repentance and renewal of the latter.  In the case of the implied story behind of “Barton Hollow,” the Saturday night is not necessarily one of debauchery–something far more grave has happened.  The crimes of this particular metaphorical Saturday night are not victimless.

“Barton Hollow” lies in an inner place of irredeemability, a kind of guilt and sense of hopeless, personal, moral corruption.  You can’t get yourself out, nor can somebody else help you.  The protagonist pleads for forgiveness, but fears of damnation, not death, and nothing can bring him back. His soul aches with the fear and barrenness.  There is no saving in this song.  It goes all the way there–no light, only tunnel.

19th century grave site, Marion County, Tennessee (photo by Glenda Schroeder)

In some comments to an earlier post, I wrote that one of the ways murder ballads function is to give people something to feel badly about or to confess to that they didn’t really do.  Perhaps people sing them or listen to them in order to feel better about or get psychologically off the hook for things they actually do.  This song operates in that space.  There is no “real” story here in terms of factual events.  The “real” story is the one that for the listener goes through that moment of deep remorse and corruption.

Here’s the official music video for “Barton Hollow.”  It suggests we may be on to something.



The outcast dreams of acceptance

I also mentioned in the previous post that I wanted to focus in this one on the aspects of the song’s performance, and how it reinforces some of these themes.  I suppose I may have been a little imprecise.  I actually want to focus on a specific performance the duo put on during a live performance on A Prairie Home Companion (the long-standing public radio program in the U.S.).  I’m very pleased when I can find moments in live performance that truly capture a bit of magic between the artists and the audience, and I think The Civil Wars in this performance find it here.  I’ll explain why in a bit.


First, the clip; it’s roughly the first two-thirds of the YouTube clip below (keep in mind this is a YouTube clip of a radio performance). The bit of banter with host, Garrison Keillor, helps emphasize some of these themes.  Please give it a listen through the second song before moving down to the next full paragraph.  I think you’ll find it worthwhile.



You can also hear the clip at the start of Segment Two on this PHC website.

There it is!  Did you hear it?  It’s the sound of redemption.

In the transition between the slowed-down, bridge-like and sinuous third verse of “From This Valley” and the resumption of the guitar and the original tempo for the chorus, the audience, sitting there in the worn, wooden church pew seats of the Ryman experiences forgiveness and redemption.  We are audio witnesses.

I first heard this performance as part of a repeat broadcast of PHC when I was driving out to a work event (Yes, this is not my day job–“We’re supposed to be making money doing this?”).  It was a crisp, but not brutally cold, late-winter day, and the sun was setting.  I was driving through some low hills in a forested section of the Northwest Suburbs of Chicago.  The pale sunlight was filtering through the leafless trees, and when that guitar kicked back in and the audience let out that cheer, I cheered as well.

Photo by Jason Stoff

In two short songs, The Civil Wars corrupt their audience thoroughly–if only imaginatively and vicariously–and then take them all the way through to redemption.  They know what they’re doing, these two.  I don’t know if they do this in all, many, or most shows (I’m not even completely sure that this performance wasn’t edited and actually happened that way), but if you ask me, taking it at face value, it was the perfect pairing for that show, in that setting, with that audience.

The Civil Wars’ style of singing through “active listening” creates some moments you can’t capture in the studio.  The audience response helps feed the artists.  Just to close out today’s post, I’ll give you another clip of a live performance of “From this Valley” and a studio recording released on a separate album.  Both are strong, but there’s nothing to replace what you see and hear in the live performances.  I’ve always thought that in music, if things can’t go really wrong, they can’t go really right.  

“From this Valley” by The Civil Wars (Spotify, studio version)  (Lyrics)

In a talk last year, the Dean of the University of Chicago Divinity School, Margaret M. Mitchell, made the analogy that studying religion is akin to playing with fire.  Fire is not a bad thing or a thing to be avoided, but a thing to be treated carefully for the source of warmth, nourishment, and destruction that it is and can be.  My sense is that in the artistic realm, The Civil Wars are rather adept at playing with this kind of fire.  Artistic choices, not explicitly religious ones, drive this music, but part of its effectiveness for listeners lies in tapping or suggesting metaphors that are either explicit or inchoate in listeners’ lived experiences or the cultural world they share with others.  Their lexicon is meaningful and resonant.

Next up:  The desert dreams of a river

I have another post in mind for later this week, which will put “Barton Hollow” in conversation with another Americana tune from the modern American South.  Having played with fire, we’ll return to the water and the rivers that occupied our attention earlier this year at Murder Ballad Monday, bringing death or redemption, or perhaps both.