Ian & Sylvia Tyson

One complication to keep in mind is that there are a few versions out there called “Silver Dagger,” which are really the “Katie Dear” strain. We’ll get to them in the next post. There are also a few “Silver Daggers” out there which are entirely different songs altogether, or bear only a tangential relationship to our main song. Gillian Welch, who performs “Katy Dear” below, has her own “Silver Dagger.” (Listen here. Lyrics here.) Given Welch’s certain familiarity with the more traditional versions, it’s hard to argue that hers is unrelated, but its relation is more distant. If the “consensus” “Silver Dagger” and “Katy Dear” are fraternal twins, Welch’s “Silver Dagger” is a cousin.

Ian and Sylvia Tyson’s performance of “Katy Dear” during the years of the Folk Revival of the 60’s provides one of the more commonly known versions. It serves as a counterpoint to Baez and Dylan’s performance of “Silver Dagger,” recorded in the same year, with the autoharp giving a something of a Carter Family feel.

Oh Katy Dear “Katy Dear” by Ian & Sylvia (Myspace)

Prior to Ian & Sylvia, the Louvin Brothers recorded their own, classic brother-harmony version.

You can find the lyrics for the Louvin Brothers version here. By and large, there’s little lyrical variation of any consequence in the multiple iterations of Katy Dear. I’ll include more in a Spotify playlist in the next post where you can explore for yourself. Sometimes the dagger is silver, sometimes it’s gold. Sometimes there’s one of each. Sometimes Katy is asked to ask her father’s permission first, sometimes her mother’s, etc. The common element is that both lovers commit suicide by the end of the song–almost always Willie first, then Katy. If the male suitor is named, he is named “Willie,” of course.

“Katy Dear” has less of a transatlantic profile than its counterpart, “Silver Dagger.” I expect this might be because “Katy Dear’s” niche is already fairly well occupied in the British and Celtic folk repertoire. The same is perhaps less true for the more distilled story of “Silver Dagger.” It may just be that “Silver Dagger” is more emotionally resonant. As we’ll discuss in the next post, it may be because “Silver Dagger” resonates with different audiences in different ways, and “Katy Dear” is a little more uniform.

The Chieftains (sigh, of course) have performed “Katy Dear” as part of their Down the Old Plank Road: The Nashville Sessions, but that’s probably greater testament to its distinctively American provenance than anything else might be. David Rawlings and Gillian Welch provide the vocals.

Thematically, the niche that “Katy Dear” appears to fit is the Cruel Parent genre, which is what takes it closest to murder ballad territory. Although there is the literal sense in which neither of the protagonists could be said to be murdered, in the broader context of murder ballads, which narrate circumstances in which life’s meaning and life’s continuation come to a crossroads, we can think of her cruel parents as the ones responsible for the young lovers’ deaths. This is more of the romantic, young person’s reading of the song, and perhaps a large part of its appeal.

Romeo and Juliet by Francis Sydney Muschamp

We’ve seen a similar theme before in “Clyde Waters” or “Drowned Lovers” (Child 216) although in that song, the mother’s curse (or malison) exerts its magical influence over the raging River Clyde, playing a significant role in the deaths of that Willie and his May Margaret. The first song we explored in the blog, “Fair Ellender,” also involved the suicide of Lord Thomas once he had killed his betrothed, the Brown Girl, for her murder of his beloved, Fair Ellender. Is this Romeo and Juliet without the broader family violence and street brawling? Perhaps not, but it’s reasonable to see it as tapping the same longings among the young and those who remember what it was like to be young. It’s a song of youthful romantic protest, a kind of rebellion. It’s more explicit in terms of the action of the story than “Silver Dagger” is, but perhaps less open to multiple readings and multiple audiences, as we’ll explore in the next post.

Ends and Means

Pat and I have been corresponding periodically more or less since the start of the blog over the question of whether we would take up songs that are more directly suicide ballads, as opposed to homicide ballads. Not to suggest that I have an over-inflated sense of the importance or influence of our humble discussion here, but I’ve been reluctant to do so. I have no concerns that our blog discussion would ever prompt someone to murder, but suicide is a somewhat different matter. Studies document that news coverage of suicide often precedes a spike in copycat suicides. Fictional stories appear to have significantly less influence, but taking time to ruminate over themes within songs about self-inflicted violence struck me as risking the possibility of providing the wrong kind of metaphors or sentiments at the wrong moment for someone who might already be predisposed to self-harm. Romanticizing it is dangerous business.

Nevertheless, at some level, particularly after we’ve accepted our rather broad definition of murder ballad and taken it in some other directions, we have to recognize that some of the suicide ballads in the folk music canon come from the very same emotional and thematic place. It’s probably not helpful to make too many fine distinctions between one sub-genre of the other. But being comprehensive is less important than being careful here. We’ll likely open the door a little bit more to this theme in the weeks ahead–in the service of understanding not only our genre, but ourselves and our music more. My explanation for the blog throughout has been that it’s a regular meditation on music and meaning, and that that exploration is itself life giving, affirming the path that music–even music about violence, murder, and death–can provide to resilience and human flourishing. The music doesn’t fail us.

Next Up

We’ll turn to the Mayor of MacDougall Street and a few other friends to get us all mixed up about “Silver Dagger” and “Katy Dear,” and in the process show us “the ballad around the ballad.”