“I took morphine last Saturday night…”

Today’s song drifted past me on the Internet several days ago and I still can’t get the sound out of my head.  No doubt, part of the reason is the delivery.  Here’s Little Nora Brown, in early February of 2018, performing “Morphine” at the Winter Hoot at the Ashokan Center in Olivebridge, New York.

That delivery was the hook, but the lyrics pulled me in. After the first line things get a bit unclear, so I started fishing around for a complete set of lyrics using the few key phrases I could decipher.  Unlike most of the songs we consider here though, this one is nearly absent from our go-to online sources. Eventually, I caught it; and though it may not be a murder ballad, it’s a whopper.

Lyrics for “Morphine” – performed by Little Nora Brown

I took morphine last Saturday night
Lord, I took it in a hell of a way.

If the doctor hadn’t come just as he did,
I’d be dead and in my grave today.

So it’s peaches, honey. It’s rye, rock and rye.
Oh baby, let me tell you my dream.

I dreamed I had money. It’s pockets full of money
and a quarter in a big dice game.

But when I woke it was only a joke
and I didn’t have a penny to my name.

And if I thought you didn’t love me
I would take morphine and I’d die.

So it’s peaches, honey. It’s rye, rock and rye.
Oh baby, I’ll love you ’til I die.

“I took it in a hell of a way…”

It’s a common reaction among the traditional music crowd to seek origins when we hear something new.  That path though, rewarding as it may be, can’t lead to understanding our gut connection to a song.  This time, my frustration in establishing provenance took me straight to an inner truth.  I had to confront whatever it was that was keeping this song in my ear.  Research and intellect couldn’t help.

From the first stanza, it’s clear this a song about an overdose.  I lost my older brother to pills just over a year ago. This one hits me hard.

It’s funny that it wasn’t lightning and thunder to me, fierce and bright from the start.  Rather, it came on in measures.  Working through each line and typing it out was slow revelation.  If I could peel back the layers of pain and confusion I regularly experience, wind them into string, and hammer them on a fretless neck…  Well, you get the idea I suppose.  I’m guessing more than a few of you know what I mean.  Like a song, you have to go it over again and again.

Whatever its source, “Morphine” is a window pane of old, dirty glass. If we choose to look through, we can glimpse a long-gone life.  In the most important ways, it was a life like my brother’s.  Maybe you see a loved one as well. Truly, the words and music come from a place of suffering that could easily find a home in any part of rural or urban America today.  The broken body, the taunting dream of a fine life of sport and money, the reality of poverty – it’s all too familiar.

The beauty in the song is still ours as well.  There is wonderful music in knotted rhythm, and the twisted thread of love to which we all cling.  There is the light of hope, dim though it may be.

What else can I say?  Bless the banjo player!  Praise the singer!  She doesn’t know what she’s doing for us, but she does it anyway.  She’s not making a social statement, she’s making art.  Art is life and it doesn’t give a good God-damn about history.  Sometimes it helps to start with the muse.

“I’d be dead and in my grave today…”

Though it’s not what makes the song ring for me, the mystery of its provenance intrigued me and I tried to trace it back.  Turns out it’s a remarkable survivor.  To start, the notes to a different performance than that above, available on Nora’s YouTube channel, reveal her source.

“This song comes from Knott County in Eastern Kentucky and was taught to her by Clifton Hicks who was taught by George Gibson who was taught by his neighbor John Sloan.”

Clifton Hicks is a talented and passionate young musician with a robust web presence.  You can easily look into his multifaceted work if you’re so inclined.  He has a few versions of the song available on YouTube, but this one seems to reflect Gibson directly as his source.

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