<<<Back to page 1

“There’s boll weevil down your neck…”

My first exposure to the song was from Woody Guthrie, in recordings of his stories of the Dust Bowl told to Alan Lomax at the Library of Congress.  After digesting that collection, I quickly found Woody Guthrie Sings Folk Songs. That includes a compelling cut of “Boll Weevil Blues” Guthrie made for Moses Asch sometime in the late 1940s.  As one might expect from Woody, his version emphasizes the poor farmer as he seeks help from bankers and the like.  That nasty bug is there too.  In other versions, the refrain is that he’s “looking for a home.”  In Woody’s, the weevil’s familiar chorus is a threat, and all too real.  “I’m gonna get your home.”

I’ve not spent much time with any other recordings besides Bibb’s and Guthrie’s.  Today’s post is really more about the feeling of the song than its history anyway.  However, in assembling my Spotify playlist and otherwise researching the song, I’ve run across some gems.  Let me share a few before I close today.  I present these in no particular order as they relate to history or provenance.  They just move me.

You would be hard-pressed to find a traditional singer with a lovelier voice than Vera Hall.  Her treatment of the tune accentuates the emotional connection between the blues and the spirituals.  It’s hard to tell if she’s singing on Saturday night or Sunday morning.  It doesn’t matter.  If you believe in the Spirit, here it is singing through her.  If you don’t, then I hope you can just enjoy this damned fine music.

Pink Anderson played a hokum version of the song, and Samuel Charters recorded it at Pink’s home in South Carolina sometime in the late 1950s or early ’60s.   I include it here both to showcase Pink’s excellent musicianship and to highlight the fact that this particular version stands as unique among the others I found.

Finally, I want to include one that joins together lyrics from all of the versions we’ve heard so far.  The empty ford machine is here.  The farmer who can’t pay his bills is here, and so on.  If you weren’t already convinced, this one proves that this song group benefits from a long history of hyper-creative application of the ‘folk process.’  Enjoy another master – Blind Willie McTell.

There’s plenty more to explore, folks.  Enjoy this rather large Spotify playlist.  There are already over 150 tracks here, and I haven’t had much time to really dig in this week!  I’m sure I’ll be able to add more to it as I continue to explore the song group.

Coda – “Silk Worms and Boll Weevils”

The boll weevil’s spread in America was a natural disaster of unprecedented proportions.  Unlike a hurricane or an earthquake, its impact was prolonged.  It spread over decades and became progressively worse, eventually joining with the Dust Bowl and the Depression to form the ‘perfect storm.’  It’s no surprise that the music arising from the experience is quite varied and profound.

Strangely, though, it also changed the south for the better in some ways.  The people of Enterprise, Alabama erected a monument to the weevil in 1919.  Its picture adorns the top of this post.  The monument celebrates the bug, and thanks it for forcing the local farmers to diversify their crops.  Peanuts, for one, helped some of them keep their homes and start a new life.

What I mean is that this is one hell of a bug!  It ruined people by the thousands, but sometimes forced them to recreate their lives for the better.  We don’t both sing blues about and erect monuments to just any old thing life throws at us.  This boll weevil is worthy of our ears and consideration.

Let me leave you with a bit of preaching on the broader subject of how some bugs help and some bugs hurt, from the Rev. J.M. Milton, from the 1920s. His message was timely, but if you miss his point these days, that’s ok.  Just enjoy his wonderful voice if you want to muse.

Thanks for reading and listening this week folks!