“On a Hill Lone and Gray”: Jesus and the murder ballad, pt. 1
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| Golgotha |
Jesus and the Murder Ballad
This week we’re going to take a small detour from the traditional murder ballad. Shaleane’s post on Nick Cave’s “The Mercy Seat” prompted me to consider just how frequently and in what guises Jesus figures appear in these songs. Themes of guilt, atonement, and salvation flow through this tradition. How does the Jesus story provide an interpretive lens to understand them? I’m asking this as a literary question, not a religious one. This won’t be a piece on what I believe about Jesus. Rather, we’ll discuss some of the ties between the Jesus story and the murder ballad genre. We’ll start with the Carter Family’s “On a Hill Lone and Gray.”
Last week, Christians in Western church traditions began the season of Lent. Lent is a period of penitence and preparation for the ritual re-telling of Jesus’s betrayal, capture, trial, death, and resurrection. Services in these traditions will include narratives of Jesus’ activities and teaching leading up to accounts of his execution. In some churches, the congregation acts the part of the crowd shouting to Pontius Pilate, “Crucify him! Crucify him!” during the reading of the Passion narrative. They ritually inhabit the roles of those who played a part in killing Jesus–just as surely as the singer inhabits the role of John Lewis in “Omie Wise.”
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| Ecce Homo, unknown artist, oil on panel, c. 1545. Rijksmuseum, Amsterdam. |
Christian traditions are not alone in telling tales of sacrifice and murder. Plenty of non-Christian and even fairy-tale-like sources go into this dark territory and inform the murder ballad tradition. My point is not to argue that the murder ballad is a distinctively Christian genre. It seemed worth taking a brief look, however, at the relationship of Jesus to the murder ballad, or at least the relationship of the Jesus narrative to the murder ballad (these are distinct). In doing so, we find both parallels to the stories and cases in which the Jesus story informs the moral universe of some singers and listeners. Sometimes, as with “The Mercy Seat,” Jesus and the story of his death are invoked explicitly.
My supposition, which may seem so obvious as to be uncontroversial, is that for many performers and listeners of these songs in America and the British Isles over the years, the dynamics of Jesus’s life and the circumstances of his death play a significant role in constructing views of guilt, atonement, and redemption, among other things. Resemblances between the songs and the Jesus narrative likely play into their power, at least for some. It may also be that the Jesus story taps into the same psychological space that murder ballads do. Rather than the Jesus story framing how some people experience murder ballads, human experience frames how individuals experience both the Jesus story and murder ballads–at least some murder ballads.
My plan for the week is to focus primarily on a few different treatments of the Jesus story. If other entries have discussed how songs about murder have brought up themes related to Jesus, this week we’ll take a look at how certain folk or popular songs about Jesus bring up themes similar to murder ballads. The songs I pick, or at least the performances of them, are not music for worship. They are folk or popular songs that take a literary approach to the story, whether they also take a devotional aspect or not.
I expect I’ll also take a short excursion into Genesis for another important bit of Biblical framing to the genre. I’ll bring in some parallels, either thematic or musical, between these songs and traditional murder ballads. I hope that this week will provide a helpful reference point for further conversations down the line.
“On a Hill Lone and Gray”
Today, I want to explore the Carter Family’s “On a Hill Lone and Gray,” from their Victor Records recordings of 1934.
“On a Hill Lone and Gray,” by the Carter Family (Spotify) Lyrics
While it doesn’t go to Mel Gibson-like excess, this song, more so than the others I’ll discuss, narrates some of the details of Jesus’ execution. It does so with a reserved economy of expression not far from that in “Omie Wise“ or “Down in the Willow Garden.” It’s not grisly or excessive, but it is clear. The primary point is to relate in a few short lines a concept of atonement. It tells us Jesus’s sacrifice is made on behalf of humanity. That sacrifice pays the price for human sin, making salvation possible.
Setting aside various theological views on Christ’s role and exactly how this sacrifice works to atone for the sins of the world, the song declares that Jesus’ death is meaningful for others. Depending on one’s religious commitments, it is more or less materially meaningful. With or without Christian religious commitments, the story resonates thematically with murder ballads. It makes explicit what is often implicit in other murder ballads. You are connected to this story and what happens to the people in it.
Beverly Carradine (1848-1931; source, Wikipedia)
The Carter Family’s version derives from “There’s a Hill Lone and Gray,” by Beverly Francis Carradine, an American Methodist minister. The Reverend Mr. Carradine also happens to be the great-grandfather of actor David Carradine, who portrayed the aptly named Kwai Chang Caine in the television series Kung Fu (a multi-cultural, non-musical murder ballad TV series in its own right), and also played Woody Guthrie in the movie Bound for Glory. Beverly Carradine’s version has a different tune, and is more extensive, both narratively and theologically. It encompasses not just the crucifixion, but the resurrection as well. In that sense, this song probably started out a song for worship. The Carters’ arrangement is not as apt for that purpose.
The Carter Family version compresses the action, and focuses on the saving work of the crucifixion of Jesus. In this respect, it closely resembles a murder ballad. Even though it mentions that this death happened “for you and for me,” it does not go on at great length about the atonement theme. It focuses on the moment when “with the cross he up-raised, while the multitude gazed.” The song brings the listener into a complicity comparable to that multitude’s. It doesn’t go as far as placing the listener in the crowd appealing to Pilate to “Crucify him,” but it does place the listener as a comparably powerless witness, or in a position like that of the few who saw the crime in “Long Black Veil.”
The singer, though, has to make it happen every time.
African-American Pentecostal Sources
Lesley Riddle (1905-1980; source, North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources)
It is likely that Carradine’s hymn reached the Carter Family through African American Pentecostal sacred music sources. Mark Zwonitzer and Charles Hirshberg’s Will You Miss Me When I’m Gone?: The Carter Family & Their Legacy in American Music, places “On a Hill Lone and Gray” within a group of songs that the Carters owe to the influence of this African American church tradition in general, and to the influence of Lesley “Esley” Riddle, in particular.
Riddle became friends with A.P. Carter, and the two had a carefully-managed interracial musical partnership, collecting old folk songs and constructing new tunes. Riddle’s influence may have also extended to Mother Maybelle’s signature guitar technique. Zwonitzer and Hirshberg tell the story of how Carter and Riddle drove together around the Jim Crow American South, and that Carter would struggle to find homes where Riddle could stay.
Riddle provided Carter with access to places he might not otherwise have been able to go to collect songs. He served as a sort of “human tape recorder” for remembering melodies and lyrics they heard together. He also occasionally worked up a song himself that would become an (uncredited) hit for the Carters. One of the more successful Pentecostal songs produced by the Carters was “When the World’s on Fire,“ which provided Woody Guthrie with the tune for “This Land is Your Land.” (In the link, it is performed by the Carolina Chocolate Drops, paying homage to Riddle.)
Other Voices
Among the limited recorded versions, artists have not strayed too far from the Carters’ approach. I’ll highlight just two later versions.
The first is by the Carter Family’s fellow Virginia music legend, Dr. Ralph Stanley, on his album of Carter Family covers A Distant Land to Roam: Songs of the Carter Family.
“On a Hill Lone and Grey,” by Ralph Stanley (Spotify)
The other version, and the first version of the song I heard, actually, is by Asheville, North Carolina based Cary Fridley, on her excellent old-time debut (I think) album, Neighbor Girl.
“On a Hill Lone & Gray,” by Cary Fridley (Spotify)
Next up
In the next post, we’ll take a look at a fairly familiar musical take on the story of Jesus’ death–one with overt socio-political commentary and close musical ties to the murder ballad tradition. After that, a more contemporary artistic/theological musing on Jesus’ sacrifice, and later a discussion of some songs springing from the Genesis account of “the first murder.”