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…and then we move down to the Adirondacks (singing about Yorkshire) and on to North Carolina.

Even Texas gets in on the act!  Actually this is Alan Lomax, and he clearly sings it in an African-American style.  It’s worth some more research to see if the song actually drifted into that tradition among the folk, or if Lomax is just in his own art joining two folk traditions with which he was deeply familiar.

Coda

There is no grand conclusion this time.  It’s a joke, after all – and one that works.  I can see where it might not work for you, but I’m not trying be that sort of judge.  An objective look shows that our ancestors over much of the Atlantic Anglophone world found this one hilarious.  That alone makes it worthy of broad consideration. Of course, the fact that the joke relies on murder as a shtick attracts the eye of this writer!  Let me now admit the obvious.  I’ve thought this song is funny since the first time I heard it.  Weird, yes – but funny.

What’s missing?  You may notice I found no instances of the song in the English-speaking Caribbean.  However, Ken told me that as he was reading a draft of my post he was making links between “Marrow Bones” and “Man Smart, Woman Smarter” and “Stone Cold Dead in the Market.”  I’m not positing any relationship or provenance.  Rather I’m just observing that humorous songs, even one with murder as a shtick, are not foreign there either.  As you think of Ella Fitzgerald’s voice on “Stone Cold Dead,” you may notice that the curated examples above feature only male singers. That’s because those were the traditional recordings available that demonstrated the geographic scope that was my objective.  If you check out the Spotify playlist below, you’ll hear plenty of women’s voices too, especially in Ireland.  “Marrow Bones” is an equal-opportunity chuckle maker.

I hope you cracked a smile at least.  Maybe you found some beauty in the variety of voices that have inhabited this ballad over time and space.  Thanks for reading and listening this week folks!