Elvis Costello appeared five or six years ago as part of “The Harry Smith Project,” a musical renewal of the songs collected by Smith in the Anthology of American Folk Music, providing his proposed resolution of the Omie Wise tale.  It’s a remarkable performance, I think, and a fine bit of songwriting.


Costello followed Kate and Anna McGarrigle’s performance of “Ommie Wise,” with a sequel he penned, “Ommie Wise, pt. 2 (What Lewis Did Last).”  He introduces it explaining that John Lewis going free seems “unsatisfying.”


There are quite a few interesting elements to this piece, the lyrics to which can be found here.  Instead of a folk dialogue, the song is mostly a first-person confession, his testimony, bookended by a bit of third-person framing that highlights his cowardice (perhaps) and desperation.  Costello’s performance can be found as the latter half of these two links:

(Steve Earle makes a few interesting comments at the conclusion of Costello’s performance.)


Ommie Wise — Elvis Costello (Spotify)


In addition to following the basic outlines of the tune, Costello paints a portrait of Lewis’s conscience that seems to me to ring at least mostly true to how such guilt or haunting would have been described in an early 19th century context.  Even with Costello’s distinctive style of delivery, I’d say the sequel here remains pretty faithful to the source.


However haunted, Lewis’s lack of full repentance leaks through his confession.  In the end, Omie gets justice through the resolution denied to Lewis.  Although some of the versions of the original ballad include Lewis’s confession and his expectation of being executed, none of them go so far as to depict execution or justice being done–which is understandable given the facts of the real case.  Nevertheless, it is interesting to think about what might drive the singers of the original ballad to leave in the confession or to take it out, and what might inspire Costello or us, in the present day, to address the unresolved matters of the original.


In the end, I don’t think there’s a chance of Costello’s song approaching the power, and staying power, of the source; and it won’t be sung for centuries.  In part, I think this is because, despite its faithfulness to the source version, it has more of a personal, novel-like approach to its characters.  And, it doesn’t really make sense as a stand-alone song.  It does, however, do a remarkably good job of painting around the edges of the story in ways that illuminate both the original and, perhaps, some of our own sensibilities about crime, injustice, and tragedy.