“The Southern Girl’s Reply”
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Unidentified girl in mourning dress holding framed photograph of her father as a cavalryman with sword and Hardee hat – tintype, ca. 1870, Library of Congress |
Introduction
Every spring I teach a unit on the American Civil War, after which my colleagues and I take our 8th graders to spend three days exploring the battlefield at Gettysburg. That means late spring get intense; for me, most particularly because fratricide is on my mind. Cain and Abel, Grant and Lee… As my fellow blogger Ken noted recently, I feel the power of stories deeply.
After reading Ken’s post concerning music and the violence of war last year, I decided to let the American Civil War inform my musical selection for this blog occasionally. I’ve come back this week, as I did with “Hiram Hubbard“ and “Two Soldiers” last year around Memorial Day, to that theme.
Now, if you know us in this blog, you know we ain’t whistling “Dixie” or piously intoning “Battle Hymn of the Republic” here. Ken Burns did *not* use the Civil War songs in which we’re interested for his documentary. Honestly, his work might be more interesting to my students if he had.
No – our targets are those songs from the Civil War that are, or at least function similarly to, murder ballads; those songs where we see the intersection of the personal and political dimensions of murder.
Rest assured, I have no point to make about America politically then or now. Like my fellow writers here, I’m purely looking to plumb the depths of human experience through music. I know of no better way to get at it all.
“My lover’s and my brother’s blood…” – The Song
Today’s song certainly digs deep in a way that one does not usually find in a typical collection of ‘Songs of the Civil War.’ “The Southern Girl’s Reply” primarily asserts that family and country are more important than love, yet it manages almost accidentally to capture the intensity of being a vital young woman trapped in a Victorian nightmare, her roles defined sharply for her by gender and nationalism in defeat.
Perhaps, though, because of the evocative vocal delivery in our featured performance by Tim Eriksen – himself a topic of previous posts – it’s easier to access this song initially through our common understanding of the ‘murder ballad‘ than through the social and political history behind the lyrics.
So be it. Let’s start with that performance, and we’ll get to the academic stuff in a bit.
Well, then… See what I mean? This may be nationalistic, but it’s got deeper creepiness too.
Though there are other performers of this song that you can hear below, none to my ears come close to the way Eriksen delivers. The tune you may recognize as “The Bonnie Blue Flag“, and so, you *did* hear that in Burns’ documentary. But the lyrics are an original poem penned by Pearl Rivers; presumably *the* Pearl Rivers, the pen name of Eliza Jane Poitevent Holbrook Nicholson, the Mississippi writer who became the first female publisher and editor of a major American newspaper. I haven’t been able to verify irrefutably that she is the author, but the circumstantial evidence is overwhelming.
Anyway, here are the lyrics as articulated by Eriksen.
I cannot listen to your words, this land’s so far and wide
Go find some happy northern girl to be your loving bride.
My brothers they were soldiers. The youngest of the three
was slain while fighting by the side of General Fitzhugh Lee.
Hurrah! Hurrah! For the sunny South I say
Three cheers for the southern girl and the boys that wore the gray.
My lover was a soldier, too, he fought at God’s command.
A sabre pierced his gallant heart. You might have been the man.
He reeled and fell but was not dead, a horseman spurred his steed
and trampled on his dying brain. You might have done the deed.
They left his body on the field whom the fight the day had won,
A horseman spurred him with his heel, you might have been the one.
But there’s no hatred in my heart, nor cold nor righteous pride,
for many’s the gallant soldier’s fell upon the other side.
But still I cannot take the hand that smote my country sore,
nor love the foe that trampled on the colors that she wore.
Between my heart and yours there rose a deep and crimson tide
My lover’s and my brother’s blood forbids me be your bride.
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| General Fitzhugh Lee |
For all of “The Lost Cause” symbolism one might heap on these words, one can argue that this particular young southern girl’s rejection of her northern suitor is in some ways more personal than political. It’s this element, accentuated I believe by Eriksen’s masterful vocal talent, that moves this song into the realm of ‘murder ballad’ from that of ‘patriotic anthem.’
She is obviously young and vital, but not “happy”, like her northern counterparts. How could she be? It is the death of her youngest brother and particularly the gruesome death of her lover, both cavalrymen, that “forbids” her to accept what seem to be otherwise welcome advances from a Yankee officer during Reconstruction. Oh, he was fine to flirt with, and interestingly she makes no apology about this – but now he’s proposing marriage. She just cannot get beyond the fact that this officer may have been the one who killed her brother or her lover.
There is southern pride here for sure, but she recognizes that many northern soldiers met the same fate as her brethren, so she at least does not see herself as engaging in nationalistic hatred, and declares it.
I think we might take her at her word. “Trampled on his dying brain?” – no, in the end this is not just political.
“The colors that she wore…” – Historical and Musical Roots
Pearl Rivers (Eliza) was eighteen years old when the “murdering cannons” first let loose at Fort Sumter, and she was twenty-two when Lee surrendered at Appomattox. Though we know little of her life during the Civil War, there is some evidence, mentioned in this lengthy article, that Eliza may have fallen in love with a Confederate soldier who died during the War. It seems, though, that this song does not specifically tell her family’s story in detail.
Nevertheless, the attitude and perspective articulated in these lines seem very much to correspond to what we might expect from a spirited young woman like Eliza during this period. Her narrowly defined role as a young, upper class southern woman available for courting and to be married off is clear, and limited even further by the demands that honor places on her. If you read the article I linked to in the previous paragraph, you’ll see that Eliza was indeed someone who chafed against the binds that held her throughout her life in the milieu of upper-class Victorian girl-and-womanhood. I’m sure many will disagree with me, but I perceive that the keen edge of this song was honed not on the whetstone of defiant southern pride, but on that of defiant womanhood.
I’m sure that wasn’t intentional on the author’s part, but art often imitates life whether we want it to or not. To my mind, Eriksen’s treatment brings to the surface this element that lurked beneath in the original, and which we now have ears to hear. Obviously though there’s more to it all than this.
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| Pearl Rivers |
As I said above, “The Southern Girl’s Reply” started out as a poem by Rivers called “True to the Gray”. The song is cataloged in the Roud Folksong Index as #7484, with only three citations. All three reference the only known recording of this song in the folk tradition, made by Anne and Frank Warner in 1941. The performer, Mrs. Eleazar Tillett, lived in Wanchese, North Carolina, on the Outer Banks.
I wish I could link to the recording here. Tillett’s voice is old and frail and her pitch is far from perfect, but there is something compelling about hearing an old woman on the doorstep of World War II delivering a song about the aftermath of another great war eighty years earlier.
The Warners identified Rivers’ poem as the source of the tune, and traced it to the 1874 publication Allan’s Lone Star Ballads, available on archive.org should you wish to peruse or download it. The lyrics are slightly different, most notably lacking the chorus we see above, but with a couplet at the end that similarly emphasizes that a southern girl has no business marrying a northern veteran.
I cannot listen to your words, the land is long and wide
Go seek some happy Northern girl to be your loving bride
My brothers they were soldiers — the youngest of the three
Was slain while fighting by the side of gallant Fitzhugh Lee
They left his body on the field (your side the day had won)
A soldier spurn'd him with his foot — you might have been the one
My lover was a soldier — he belonged to Gordon's band
A sabre pierced his gallant heart — yours might have been the hand.
He reel'd and fell, but was not dead, a horseman spurr'd his steed.
And trampled on the dying brain — you may have done the deed
I hold no hatred in my heart, no cold, unrighteous pride,
For many a gallant soldier fought upon the other side
But still I cannot kiss the hand that smote my country sore,
Nor love the foes that trampled down the colors that she bore
Between my heart and yours there rolls a deep and crimson tide —
My brother's and my lover's blood forbid me be your bride.
The girls who lov'd the boys in gray — the girls to country true —
May ne'er in wedlock give their hands to those who wore the blue.
It turns out though that Allan’s book does not represent the earliest publication of these lines. We have sheet music, here, in the digital collection of the Library of Congress, from 1870 which clearly shows the same lyrics, credited to Rivers, set to music four years earlier and published in Baltimore, Maryland. Whether or not Rivers’ lyrics were written to go with this music is unclear, but this at least establishes that what would become the song that Mrs. Tillett sang to the Warners in 1941 was composed at the latest only five years after the Civil War. As with “Two Soldiers” then, we see that something meant to be a more formal composition worked its way into the folk tradition and became a bona fide folk song.
And thanks to the work of the Warners, we can now hear anew this song that very likely would have been lost to the living tradition by the start of The Atomic Age.
“But still I cannot take the hand…” – Other Performances
Let’s talk about hearing the song anew then.
I’ve made no secret of the fact in this blog that I’m a Tim Eriksen fan. This of course means I’m legitimately subject to claims of bias when I say above that his performance of this song tops the others I’m about to present. So, I want you to check me on it.
But, let’s be clear – I’ve never said “Tim is awesome” and just left it at that. I argued in this post and in this one that it’s not only Eriksen’s particular gifts and talents that allow him to do wonders with song, but that his traditional approach to ballad singing is equally important. When performing in the traditional manner, he never places his voice or instrumental work in front of the story, and this we know is the key to effective ballad delivery.
That would seem to me to be particularly important in a song like this one, if a post-modern male singer is to deliver it with even a chance at evoking authenticity.
The subject of vocal authenticity has come up in our blog before, most recently in a post by Ken exploring it all in the context of Bob Dylan. However, I took up the question in an earlier post about hearing the song “Cold Rain and Snow” as performed by both men and women. In that post I argued that song more or less carries two different sets of meanings when sung by men and women. We saw something similar with “Matty Groves” as well.
But does hearing “The Southern Girl’s Reply” in a woman’s voice make it more immediately believable?
You be the judge. Let’s listen to two 2011 recordings of the song; the first from The Sheets Family Band out of western North Carolina, and the second from Wendy Arrowsmith, from across the Pond.
Both Pamela Goddard and Judy Cook cut versions of the tune as well. However, these two performances above give us enough to work with. Again, you’ll obviously judge for yourself; but it seems to me that in both cases that, though the tracks are well done and the musicianship is professional, the approach to ballad singing is not traditional and so the song fails to fire on all cylinders. The woman’s voice does not automatically guarantee greater authenticity with what is obviously a woman’s song.
The Sheets’ take is too ‘folksy’ and upbeat – the line about the man’s brains being trampled upon just sounds totally out of place. And though there is more appropriate emotion in her performance, Arrowsmith’s fine instrumentation and vocal formality for me detract from the story. It’s more about the performance, and this is death to a traditional ballad.
Now, you could argue I’m not seeing their authenticity because I’m a man. Fair enough. Does hearing this in a man’s voice like Eriksen’s evoke a masculine, sexist read on what is expected of women? Perhaps.