Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/11/2021:  22:03:32

Mole in the ground




TOTW 12/02/21
This weeks tune of the week is the timeless mole in the ground. It has many many obscure and different verses and numerous interpretations of their origin.
I’ve heard it many times and never understood its obscure lyrics. Recently I came across a really neat version by The tallest man on earth that caught my attention. He plays some great banjo on it with a couple of rifts and a great verse link. His playing sort of reminded me of Rob Stetson’s playing, ie playing a tune within a tune. Here he is;

youtu.be/j20m_R6jdWk

I just loved the syncopation in his version and with aid of a slow downer I’ve managed to tab what I think he’s playing.

Tab is at end of article. Tuning double C, capo fret 2, 5th string tuned to A.



When I first looked at the tunes lyrics from various sources they were just weird and so diverse. Bascom Lunsford is often noted to be the authority on the tunes history after the release of the folkways record in 1952 an anthology of American folk. In the sleeve notes accompanying the record, Lunsford recalls learning the tune while he was a high school student in 1901. He also mentioned that the last request from his mother before she died was to play the tune for her. The significance of his mother’s request was lost on me at the start of my exploration, but became clearer later.

Bascom Lamar Lunsford on "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground":

The title of this mountain banjo song is "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground." I've known it since 1901 when I heard Fred Moody, then a high school boy, sing it down in Burke County. Fred lives in Haywood County, North Carolina, and the footnote to the song is that the "bend" referred to is the bend of the Pigeon River in Haywood County, North Carolinia. I played it as a request of my mother back in 1902. It was the last request she ever made of me. I was teaching that time at Doggett's Gap at public school in Madison County, and returned to my school on Sunday evening. She was interested in my picking the banjo, and she asked me to get the five-string banjo down and play "I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground." I went away, and she grew sick and passed away and that was the last request she ever made of me.

Lunseford refers to the bend in the pigeon river in Haywood on which a penitentiary stood. Other sources later say there is no history of such a corrective institution. But it would make sense if a prison existed as a mole would be perfect to escape.

Lunsford’s version:

youtu.be/-FHUi_M427Y

In his version he mentions a woman. Kimpy who wants a $9 shawl and he wants her hair to hang down and let her “bangs” curl around. He’s also states in another verse he’s going to pay for the shawl with a $40 bill when he gets out of the penitentiary? All very confusing until I read an interpretation of this from Greil Marcus the American music critic who discusses the song extensively here at 7 mins 30 seconds:

youtu.be/6wBlXAzv0Fg

He explains the $40 bill was only in circulation for 2 years between 1778 and 1780 which could mean that the writer of that verse remembers its issue dating the tune well before the first date mentioned of this tune by Lunsford of 1901.
He also mentions that letting your hair hang down is an American sexual reference which from the lyrics would seem to fit. ......,Kimpy let your hair hang down and let your bangs curl round........
He reckons the tune is made up of verses over many decades by people at the bottom of the social ladder who are so insignificant they feel worthless . They all want to be something else, anything but what they are. The. Mole digging into the mountain, to bring the establishment down, escape prison, to hide. The other common verse about being a lizard is similar. Lizards are cold blooded creatures hiding in the rocks and cracks. Unseen. If he wanted to hear his sweetheart sing in the spring, why not say raccoon, eagle,Buffalo, Bobcat, puma or swallow. They are warm blooded visable creatures living openly, not hiding in the shady dark places.
Then I remembered a song by Dory Previn mythical kings and iguanas from the 1970’s. Was she talking about the same things? In this tune she says she spent too much of her life chasing mythical and metaphysical beings and spirits instead of looking at the reality of the real world and practical sensual living.
But that isn’t the same as a mole in a ground lyrics meanings. She is looking for happiness in mythical beings, has seen the error of her ways and wants to reconnect with nature in practical day to day living instead of chasing dreams. In a mole in the ground, the lyrics are about hiding and not being seen. There is no hope in the song, just statements of hopelessness with no salvation.

Dory Previn, Mythical kings and iguanas:

youtu.be/lxOgeSxS0Ew

Another line in the mole song that is very common is the dislike of railway companies. They all refer to railway companies stealing from you or killing you. There was a lot of corruption in the rail companies, they stole people’s land to build their railways and murdered farmers to get their way but I came across an explanation of a certain practise they carried out against hobo’s from Derrol Adams

youtu.be/KIH6sy8VRm8

And here’s the tune in full:

youtu.be/c6yH5HLxXtc

So yet again the mole in the ground has a variation based on desperation. The 1930’s depression were men had nothing, no work, no hope, no future and there is no solution offered.

Doc Watsons version is a bit more upbeat, more about love and his girl Kimpi but again the railroad man gets a mention and he changes the dollar bill to $50.

Doc Watsons version of mole in the ground is at 10 mins into the video below. He introduces the song as learnt from his uncle Jake and says it’s about love and his uncle wanting to burrow through the hill on the way to work rather than walk over it which seemed more of a humorous comment than factual. Docs version is probably the most upbeat in terms of lyrics and like he says, his uncle referred to it as a courting song.

Doc Watson.
youtu.be/-4SAkCv6ri4

Going back to the Greil Marcus lecture, he points out, the only concrete dating point to the song is the $40 dollar bill. All the other verses have no concrete location, times, historical references. The verses are made up from different times with two common elements, despair and sex. The periods could be anytime in history. It could be the aftermath of the American civil war, the Great Depression, the railroad corruption. Any time where an individual was powerless to change things and felt so insignificant that they’d rather be anything than who they are makes up numerous verses of this tune.The intermingling of despair and love are the only constants in the song.

Other versions I’ve heard are Hunter Robertson playing it 2 finger style at a concert in Ludlow, England six years ago. Sorry for the camera work but concert was so full I had to film it through the window and didn’t get the orientation correct. Hunter has a great voice for this song.

youtu.be/iBt-X8acxQg

And then there is this one from Eric Bibb which has his own verses . Tree in a wood as he’d know just where he stood and a stone in the rain as he’d feel no pain. Both verses again have someone wishing to be something without ambition and unnoticed, they just wish to become invisible like a mole or lizard. He even specifies the tree he’d like to be would be in a wood. By saying that he’s even blending in with the other trees to become totally anonymous. In other verses he wishes himself to be a wave on the sea, again inconspicuous though he ads with this verse “they’d have no hold on me” meaning I presume, control. In the final verse he wishes he was back in his mother’s arms as a baby were no one can do him harm. He wants to be anything other than what he is now.

youtu.be/U4-6UDgxhOE

And finally an electronic version I came across last week. Probably the most disturbing version I’ve heard. The tune gets quite eerie and manic towards the end with the singer in the last few lines stating that if he was a mole in the ground, he’d bring the government down. Even the albums cover looks rather menacing. Its a stripped back version of the song without any shred of banjo-and-barndance folk jollity to expose the starkly disturbing narrative knotted into the grassroots of the song’s origins and mythology.

Blixa Bargello:
youtu.be/JHYMJE-HVHM

youtu.be/n0FLVspn-U8




Going back to the start of this post I said I thought I knew why Lunsfords mother asked him to play the tune for her the last time they met. Maybe she knew she was dying and maybe she wished it would soon be over. Maybe she wished she was that mole in the ground?


Here is my effort based on The tallest man on earth. It’s a bit dis-jointed as I am not as skilful a player as he is and in trying to emulate his speed and that great sounding slide down the fretboard into one of his variations, I’m not quick enough..........maybe one day.

soundcloud.com/neill-connor/mo...d&p=i&c=1

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/11/2021:  22:41:28

Janet Burton is going to post my tab of The tallest man on earth version shortly as I can never link a tab onto hangout????

AndyW - Posted - 02/12/2021:  00:55:14

First time tune of the week has ever 'aligned' with something I am learning. Started on the Tommy Jarrel version of 'Tempie' from Brad Leftwich's book a couple of days ago. Just about at the stage where I take it off tab, hopefully by the end of the week I'll be able to record a version for here.

cmic - Posted - 02/12/2021:  01:41:01

Excellent history and playing, Neill !! Love this, interpretation of lyrics, etc..
By the way Art Rosenbaum as a 2 finger version of this tune, played after
Bascom Lamar Lunsford. In "Old Time Banjo Book".
AR lyrics says "...If I's a mole in the ground, I'd root that mountain down"
and forty dollar bills, etc. Like Neill said.

ndlxs - Posted - 02/12/2021:  05:35:49

Thanks for the background on the weird disconnected verses.  



This one is from John McCutcheon's version:

I wish I was a hole in the ground (2x)

If I was a hole in the ground I'd be a 

mountain upside down,

I wish I was a hole in the ground. 



I was Mr. Tallest Man actually does his own country's music too:

youtube.com/watch?v=7gbuqgGf4SU

ndlxs - Posted - 02/12/2021:  05:38:28

One petty thing: anyone claiming to be the tallest man on earth is required to document this height.  I too am tall (6'5") but just this side of normal.  I also play banjo. 65% of me is Scandanvian. 

Edited by - ndlxs on 02/12/2021 05:44:04

Wyozark - Posted - 02/12/2021:  06:21:22

Whoa. Terrific research! And if you have the book Wayne Erbsen has a nice beginner's sing along version tab on pages 26-27 of his CLAWHAMMER BANJO: Tunes, Tips & Jamming.

Edited by - Wyozark on 02/12/2021 06:32:58

UncleClawhammer - Posted - 02/12/2021:  06:30:04

Honestly, I think the lyrics are there more to be sung than understood, and it's just a mix and match of disconnected verses typical of a lot of folk songs. I never thought of it as much more than a quasi-nonsense love song. Robert Cantwell, however, has this to say in his book about the folk revival, When We Were Good:



"[W]hy does Bascom wish to be a mole in the ground? Perhaps because he is a man not at home where destiny has placed him. He has been in the “Bend,” quite likely a prison, too long, “with the rough and rowdy men” of whom, I think it is fair to say, he is not one. And he has had a bad experience with railroad men, who “drink up your blook like wine.” Even Tempe, his woman, doesn’t love him in the way he deserves, wanting him only when he can supply the cash for the nine-dollar shawl she covets; that doesn’t prevent him, though, from loving her… To hear her sing, he would wish himself not only a contemptible mole but a vile “lizard in the spring.”



A lizard, a mole: Bascom is not the first man in love to feel his rodent-like unworthiness and reptilian cupidity… Nor is he the first to feel, under the influence of love, the roughness of his own sex, or whose heart has learned the arcane and curious language in which nature, in the form of mole and lizard, little miracles of creation and perhaps, in the metaphorical field of sexuality, covert genital symbols, both speaks to his condition and brings him into unconscious sympathy with his beloved."



Indeed.

Edited by - UncleClawhammer on 02/12/2021 06:34:30

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/12/2021:  06:51:17

I think Boscom liked the song because despite his education and wealth gained as a lawyer, his heart was still with the mountain hillbillies. He campaigned in the 20’s and thirties against film companies who stereotyped the mountain folk as dumb simpletons and inbreds. He had an affinity despite his wealth with the poor people barely making a living off the land and I think he understood the hardships they suffered. Their life depended on the weather which was outside their control.
If you don’t think a songs lyrics are important, it’s pointless singing them, you might as well just hum the tune. I think the tune is a close to nihilism as it comes

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/12/2021:  06:59:00

I found a video of a school teacher talking about a mole in the ground and the verses the 7 year old kids made up for it. All of them were happy and positive verses as would be expected. Experiences in life and it’s inequalities turns people into moles

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/12/2021:  08:15:10

Try this

Mole

 

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/12/2021:  09:33:54

Another song that I’ve never really understood is the Carter’s Wildwood flower. The 1st verse is totally senseless. So in the course of looking up the mole in the ground stuff I looked into wildwood flower meaning. Apparently it comes from a poem written in 1860 by Maude Irving called I’ll twine mid the ringlets. Here’s a comparison of the 1st verse of the poem and how the Carter’s sang it



Some of the lyric changes:

Poem: `I’ll twine mid the ringlets of my raven black hair’

Song: `Oh, I’ll twine with my mane, golden weeping black hair…’

Poem: ‘The lilies so pale and the roses so fair…’

Song: ‘…with a rose that’s so red and the lilies so fair.’

Poem: `The myrtle so bright with the emerald hue and the pale aronatus with eyes of bright blue’

Song: `And the myrtle so bright with the emerald dew, the pale and the leader and eyes look like blue.’



So it’s a bit clearer but what is aronatus ? Obviously some kind of flower but I can’t find it. Maybe a local name for a particular flower. But the Carter’s fourth line of the 1st verse is meaningless. Maybe someone will investigate for an upcoming tune of the week?

Edited by - Hay-on-Wye on 02/12/2021 09:35:13

UncleClawhammer - Posted - 02/12/2021:  09:43:07

The Carters actually sang these first two lines:



Oh, I'll twine with my mingles and waving black hair

With the roses so red and lilies so fair...



Which, of course, doesn't make any more sense.



The song came to the Carters through the oral tradition - leave it to the folk process to mangle the words of a song beyond intelligibility. There are similar corruptions in the rest of the Carter Family lyric, and nearly everyone else learned the song from the Carters; surely at some point someone must have stopped and realized that what they were singing made no sense?



Variants of the song have turned up as "The Pale Amaranthus," which "aronatus" is probably a corruption of.

Edited by - UncleClawhammer on 02/12/2021 09:51:45

JanetB - Posted - 02/12/2021:  09:46:47

Neill's tab:

Edited by - JanetB on 02/12/2021 09:48:19

UncleClawhammer - Posted - 02/12/2021:  09:52:49

Art Rosenbaum includes a tab of Lunsford's version in Old-time Mountain Banjo.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/12/2021:  10:46:01

Art Rosenbaum's  mole in the ground from his book old time mountain banjo

Edited by - Hay-on-Wye on 02/12/2021 10:46:31

Art Rosenbaum

 

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/12/2021:  10:47:58

blixa Bargello’s album cover containing track mole in the ground

Mole in the ground

 

banjo_brad - Posted - 02/12/2021:  14:32:21

One of my favorites to do - especially after I got my fretless mountain banjo. Recorded it and put it up on my web site several years ago: here's the link to the YT of it:

Mole In The Ground  

Just ignore the poor vocal.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/12/2021:  14:37:53

Sounds great on that fretless. plenty of opportunity to put silky slides into the tune

JanetB - Posted - 02/12/2021:  16:37:44

Nice work, Neill, both on research and your performance of your favorite take on the song. Also nice to see and hear Fred with his new banjo. Doc Watson's is the first one in my experience and learning his banjo part is a treat. He does lots of pull-offs, hammer-ons and slides and fills the eighth notes with rhythmic sound. As he sings he's playing the same solo, so he knew it well. I was lucky to watch him and Merle perform more than once and to finally meet Doc.

Doc Watson

I Wish I was a Mole in the Ground (TOTW)

I Wish I was a Mole in the Ground (Doc Watson)(CH) tab

 

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/12/2021:  20:51:46

Janet as soon as you started playing that knew it was Docs version. He had a unique style. Lovely smooth playing

hobogal - Posted - 02/13/2021:  00:28:16

I really like Carling and Will's slow version - they bring out a melancholy feel to the 'wishing' lyrics: carlingandwill.bandcamp.com/tr...he-ground

Edited by - hobogal on 02/13/2021 00:29:12

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/13/2021:  00:59:38

Yes that slow version by carling and will has the melancholy and it uses a variety verses from the 18th century right up to Eric Bibbs 2010 verse about the trees. I think they may have added one of their own about the hawks towards the end. That verse isn’t really in keeping with the song as it has an element of hope and control which non of the others have. But a nice version.

AndyW - Posted - 02/13/2021:  14:22:48

Gaither Carlton's 'Omie Let your bangs hang down' on Claw hammer Vol2 was the first version I heard.

youtu.be/0nI4av16epY

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/13/2021:  14:31:26

Missed that one Andy. It’s a sexual reference as Greil Marcus points out in his talk.

BrooksMT - Posted - 02/13/2021:  14:36:45

Rotating Neill's movie of Hunter's Mole in the Ground using VLC media player:



1. Download the youtube video to your computer. Open the video file using VLC by clicking on Hunter video it in the usual way. I stop or pause the playing because it's distracting to me while manipulating the image.



2. Click on VLC's Tools, and then click on these in succession: effects and filters/video effects/geometry. Click to put a check mark in the Transform box (with the gray box saying "Rotate by 90 degrees" which is default for my copy of VLC). You can choose other items in the grey box to play around with the image if you want. You will see Hunter sit up straight. Proceed to watch him play (easier to see what his left hand is doing).



3. When you get the image the way you want, ie Hunter sitting on his chair..... *Don't* Save the rotated file (via box in lower right corner of the Geometry pane), otherwise all the rest of your VLC files will be rotated. In other words, you are changing a VLC setting, you are not changing the individual video. No big deal, just change Hunter's vid whenever you want to see it upright per step 2.



4. I don't know how to change the file's desktop photo so he is sitting upright.



5. If you forget to uncheck the rotate Transform box, you will need to uncheck the box in step 2 for your next VLC play of a different video, otherwise all your VLC plays from then on will be rotated. However, if you prefer nose-on-the-ground banjoists....*smiles*.



Hope this helps. Personal message me on BHO if you have problems.

Edited by - BrooksMT on 02/13/2021 14:39:18

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/13/2021:  22:19:50

A comprehensive informative piece but you do realise your talking to a 60 year old who struggles to move a photo from hangout storage to a post. It took me 2 hours to upload the audio of my playing as I’ve managed to bigger up the settings on my video camera.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/16/2021:  09:32:32

Thought I’d include this video of blind boy Paxton. I did come across it in my research on the tune but didn’t include because:
1. It was too cheerful for mole in the ground as I was pointing out the depressing nature of the tune.......that guy smiles too much while playing it!
2. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never heard of blind boy Paxton before seeing this video just posted on the hangout of him playing an old bassy grain measure banjo. Had he played mole in the ground on that he’d defiantly have been included.

banjohangout.org/topic/372763

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/16/2021:  11:04:37

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

Thought I’d include this video of blind boy Paxton.

youtu.be/7DEbQ95TBP0

 

 I did come across it in my research on the tune but didn’t include because:

1. It was too cheerful for mole in the ground as I was pointing out the depressing nature of the tune.......that guy smiles too much while playing it!

2. I’m ashamed to say that I’ve never heard of blind boy Paxton before seeing this video just posted on the hangout of him playing an old bassy grain measure banjo. Had he played mole in the ground on that he’d defiantly have been included.



banjohangout.org/topic/372763

---

AndyW - Posted - 02/19/2021:  07:37:44

Here's my attempt, took me a while and still haven't quite got it, but the week is out....



youtube.com/watch?v=8KTAtelPW0I

Unfortunately as I live in a flat (apartment) the banjo was muted via stuffing right under the bridge and some crocodile clips so banjo is a bit 'flat'.

Edited by - AndyW on 02/19/2021 07:40:42

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/19/2021:  07:49:34

Sounds pretty good. You’ve got the basics spot on

UncleClawhammer - Posted - 02/23/2021:  01:21:54

Here are Morgan (banjo) and Lee Sexton (fiddle) doing a version they call Sammie, Where You Been So Long?

maryzcox - Posted - 02/26/2021:  12:06:46

Hi--just saw this Mole In the Ground post.  Originally I learned it from the playing of Bascom--but like so many other traditional mountain tunes--the verses seemed to be all mixed up with all kinds of verses with different themes.  The two main themes seemed to be the lost love of a girl (Tippy & Lulu) being the most popular) & animal oriented verses.  So I took the liberty of keeping the animal verses & adding to those & dropping the Tippy and girl type verses.  Hope you enjoy my animal oriented version. It was my Mom's favorite. :) Its also recorded on my Blue Sky Banjo CD maryzcox.com

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/26/2021:  12:25:57

Very nice Mary and that banjo sounds deep and meaty.

maryzcox - Posted - 02/26/2021:  12:51:35

Its a Goldtone ML-1 baritone banjo :)

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/26/2021:  14:17:05

Aah, that’s why it’s so low. I thought you’d shrunk looking at the size of the pot

Professor Jive - Posted - 02/28/2021:  04:16:58

I'm an old geezer and have played this tune for years. I've always thought of the verses as just rambles about veiled sexual interests and the sporting life in general. To me it falls into the category of masculine tunes like Red Rocking Chair, Bound to Ride, Roll'm Boys Roll'm, etc. These are tunes guys sang, I think, when boozing and fighting when they got together over at some remote rural good time place. I lived for 25 or so years in the West Virginia mountains and knew of and visited places like that. The booze shack, for lack of a better name, was very common. The local guys gathered there to fight (a common sport), to cock fight, swap stuff like hunting dogs and yes to enjoy young (and old) ladies. They might go to church on Sunday but Saturday night they roared. I wouldn't put much poetic or philosophical context into any of the verses.

AndyW - Posted - 02/28/2021:  05:15:10

When I first listened to County Clawhammer 1 soon after I picked up the banjo I thought a lot of the tracks were featuring 2 banjo's (I know different now). I think the reason was all the alternate string pulloffs (amongst other notes from open strings) were 'hanging' in the air behind melody notes. Everything seemed 'filled out' with no need for another instrument, probably difficult to achieve if not utilising the 'normal' tuning for a tune so one decent reason to retune.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/28/2021:  05:31:38

quote:

---

Originally posted by Professor Jive

I'm an old geezer and have played this tune for years. I've always thought of the verses as just rambles about veiled sexual interests and the sporting life in general. To me it falls into the category of masculine tunes like Red Rocking Chair, Bound to Ride, Roll'm Boys Roll'm, etc. These are tunes guys sang, I think, when boozing and fighting when they got together over at some remote rural good time place. I lived for 25 or so years in the West Virginia mountains and knew of and visited places like that. The booze shack, for lack of a better name, was very common. The local guys gathered there to fight (a common sport), to cock fight, swap stuff like hunting dogs and yes to enjoy young (and old) ladies. They might go to church on Sunday but Saturday night they roared. I wouldn't put much poetic or philosophical context into any of the verses.

---

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/28/2021:  05:35:46

I agree but it’s a standard tune that most people learn at some point and when you look at the words they were just random gibberish. Talking about moles in one verse and railmen drinking your blood in the next with a girl called kimpi letting her hair hang down in another waiving a $40 bill and wanting a shawl? Probably makes sense when you’ve had a couple of pints of hooch and bosted a few noses

Edited by - Hay-on-Wye on 02/28/2021 05:37:42

Professor Jive - Posted - 02/28/2021:  06:19:43

Yes, I agree. And it makes for a great banjo tune. By the way, the picture on my post was taken of me at the Dudley Farm State Park in Newberry, Florida. I play a solo banjo set there once a week. This is a working farm that the Dudley family donated to the State of Florida. It is not a recreation but the original farm dating from the 1850's when the Dudley family migrated to Alachua County from South Carolina. I really enjoy sitting in a rocking chair on the front porch of the original homestead playing nineteenth century tunes: parlor songs, minstrel songs, roustabout tunes and fiddle tunes.

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 02/28/2021:  08:28:06

Dudley eh? Bit of a coincidence as I also live in the borough of Dudley, West Midlands, England. Dudley has been around since the 8th century and had a castle built in the 12th century. Since then it’s produced coal at Baggeridge pit which closed in 1968. It’s now a country park and I worked there as a ranger for several years when it opened in 1983.
The only thing it’s famous for now is closed down shops and smack heads.

Mister Lucky - Posted - 03/02/2021:  16:20:41

quote:

---

Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

Another song that I’ve never really understood is the Carter’s Wildwood flower. The 1st verse is totally senseless. So in the course of looking up the mole in the ground stuff I looked into wildwood flower meaning. Apparently it comes from a poem written in 1860 by Maude Irving called I’ll twine mid the ringlets. Here’s a comparison of the 1st verse of the poem and how the Carter’s sang it



Some of the lyric changes:

Poem: `I’ll twine mid the ringlets of my raven black hair’

Song: `Oh, I’ll twine with my mane, golden weeping black hair…’

Poem: ‘The lilies so pale and the roses so fair…’

Song: ‘…with a rose that’s so red and the lilies so fair.’

Poem: `The myrtle so bright with the emerald hue and the pale aronatus with eyes of bright blue’

Song: `And the myrtle so bright with the emerald dew, the pale and the leader and eyes look like blue.’



So it’s a bit clearer but what is aronatus ? Obviously some kind of flower but I can’t find it. Maybe a local name for a particular flower. But the Carter’s fourth line of the 1st verse is meaningless. Maybe someone will investigate for an upcoming tune of the week?

---

Let me clear that up for you.....

She is singing about weaving flowers into her hair. 

A common practice at one time.

Mister Lucky - Posted - 03/02/2021:  16:29:05

quote:

---

Originally posted by UncleClawhammer

Honestly, I think the lyrics are there more to be sung than understood, and it's just a mix and match of disconnected verses typical of a lot of folk songs. I never thought of it as much more than a quasi-nonsense love song. Robert Cantwell, however, has this to say in his book about the folk revival, When We Were Good:



"[W]hy does Bascom wish to be a mole in the ground? Perhaps because he is a man not at home where destiny has placed him. He has been in the “Bend,” quite likely a prison, too long, “with the rough and rowdy men” of whom, I think it is fair to say, he is not one. And he has had a bad experience with railroad men, who “drink up your blook like wine.” Even Tempe, his woman, doesn’t love him in the way he deserves, wanting him only when he can supply the cash for the nine-dollar shawl she covets; that doesn’t prevent him, though, from loving her… To hear her sing, he would wish himself not only a contemptible mole but a vile “lizard in the spring.”



A lizard, a mole: Bascom is not the first man in love to feel his rodent-like unworthiness and reptilian cupidity… Nor is he the first to feel, under the influence of love, the roughness of his own sex, or whose heart has learned the arcane and curious language in which nature, in the form of mole and lizard, little miracles of creation and perhaps, in the metaphorical field of sexuality, covert genital symbols, both speaks to his condition and brings him into unconscious sympathy with his beloved."



Indeed.

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Wow, this analysis falls into the category of excessive overthinking. 

And in the words of the great philosopher Groucho Marx:

"Sometimes a cigar is just a good smoke."

The singer wants to be a mole in the ground because of it's destructive capabilities. 

The singer wants to "tear the whole place down.'

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/02/2021:  22:32:30

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Originally posted by Mister Lucky

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

Another song that I’ve never really understood is the Carter’s Wildwood flower. The 1st verse is totally senseless. So in the course of looking up the mole in the ground stuff I looked into wildwood flower meaning. Apparently it comes from a poem written in 1860 by Maude Irving called I’ll twine mid the ringlets. Here’s a comparison of the 1st verse of the poem and how the Carter’s sang it



Some of the lyric changes:

Poem: `I’ll twine mid the ringlets of my raven black hair’

Song: `Oh, I’ll twine with my mane, golden weeping black hair…’

Poem: ‘The lilies so pale and the roses so fair…’

Song: ‘…with a rose that’s so red and the lilies so fair.’

Poem: `The myrtle so bright with the emerald hue and the pale aronatus with eyes of bright blue’

Song: `And the myrtle so bright with the emerald dew, the pale and the leader and eyes look like blue.’



So it’s a bit clearer but what is aronatus ? Obviously some kind of flower but I can’t find it. Maybe a local name for a particular flower. But the Carter’s fourth line of the 1st verse is meaningless. Maybe someone will investigate for an upcoming tune of the week?

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Let me clear that up for you.....

She is singing about weaving flowers into her hair. 

A common practice at one time.

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Thanks for that. I remember the girls at school making Daisy crowns and chains . Never saw any I can recollect with roses and Lilly's on there bonce

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/02/2021:  22:38:02

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Originally posted by Mister Lucky

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Originally posted by UncleClawhammer

Honestly, I think the lyrics are there more to be sung than understood, and it's just a mix and match of disconnected verses typical of a lot of folk songs. I never thought of it as much more than a quasi-nonsense love song. Robert Cantwell, however, has this to say in his book about the folk revival, When We Were Good:



"[W]hy does Bascom wish to be a mole in the ground? Perhaps because he is a man not at home where destiny has placed him. He has been in the “Bend,” quite likely a prison, too long, “with the rough and rowdy men” of whom, I think it is fair to say, he is not one. And he has had a bad experience with railroad men, who “drink up your blook like wine.” Even Tempe, his woman, doesn’t love him in the way he deserves, wanting him only when he can supply the cash for the nine-dollar shawl she covets; that doesn’t prevent him, though, from loving her… To hear her sing, he would wish himself not only a contemptible mole but a vile “lizard in the spring.”



A lizard, a mole: Bascom is not the first man in love to feel his rodent-like unworthiness and reptilian cupidity… Nor is he the first to feel, under the influence of love, the roughness of his own sex, or whose heart has learned the arcane and curious language in which nature, in the form of mole and lizard, little miracles of creation and perhaps, in the metaphorical field of sexuality, covert genital symbols, both speaks to his condition and brings him into unconscious sympathy with his beloved."



Indeed.

---

 

Wow, this analysis falls into the category of excessive overthinking. 

And in the words of the great philosopher Groucho Marx:

"Sometimes a cigar is just a good smoke."

 

The singer wants to be a mole in the ground because of it's destructive capabilities. 

The singer wants to "tear the whole place down.'

---

But Groucho wasn't aware of the correlation of smoking and cancer when he said that.  

I don't think it's all about rebellion. A rebel would stand and fight, not withdraw and hide.

Mister Lucky - Posted - 03/03/2021:  11:15:44

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

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Originally posted by Mister Lucky

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Originally posted by UncleClawhammer

Honestly, I think the lyrics are there more to be sung than understood, and it's just a mix and match of disconnected verses typical of a lot of folk songs. I never thought of it as much more than a quasi-nonsense love song. Robert Cantwell, however, has this to say in his book about the folk revival, When We Were Good:



"[W]hy does Bascom wish to be a mole in the ground? Perhaps because he is a man not at home where destiny has placed him. He has been in the “Bend,” quite likely a prison, too long, “with the rough and rowdy men” of whom, I think it is fair to say, he is not one. And he has had a bad experience with railroad men, who “drink up your blook like wine.” Even Tempe, his woman, doesn’t love him in the way he deserves, wanting him only when he can supply the cash for the nine-dollar shawl she covets; that doesn’t prevent him, though, from loving her… To hear her sing, he would wish himself not only a contemptible mole but a vile “lizard in the spring.”



A lizard, a mole: Bascom is not the first man in love to feel his rodent-like unworthiness and reptilian cupidity… Nor is he the first to feel, under the influence of love, the roughness of his own sex, or whose heart has learned the arcane and curious language in which nature, in the form of mole and lizard, little miracles of creation and perhaps, in the metaphorical field of sexuality, covert genital symbols, both speaks to his condition and brings him into unconscious sympathy with his beloved."



Indeed.

---

 

Wow, this analysis falls into the category of excessive overthinking. 

And in the words of the great philosopher Groucho Marx:

"Sometimes a cigar is just a good smoke."

 

The singer wants to be a mole in the ground because of it's destructive capabilities. 

The singer wants to "tear the whole place down.'

---

But Groucho wasn't aware of the correlation of smoking and cancer when he said that.  

I don't think it's all about rebellion. A rebel would stand and fight, not withdraw and hide.

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"A rebel would stand and fight not withdraw and hide."

Really?

That is what the British thought, until they faced the American rebels who practiced guerilla warfare.

Guerilla warfare can defeat the mightiest army: Viet Cong defeated US forces in SE Asia, and Afghan fighters defeated the US in Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires. 

Or perhaps you never read Sun Tzu: "Attack your enemy where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."

Another Sun Tzu quote: "Hold out bait to entice your enemy, feign disorder and crush him."

Edited by - Mister Lucky on 03/03/2021 11:16:56

Hay-on-Wye - Posted - 03/03/2021:  12:31:18

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Originally posted by Mister Lucky

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

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Originally posted by Mister Lucky

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Originally posted by UncleClawhammer

Honestly, I think the lyrics are there more to be sung than understood, and it's just a mix and match of disconnected verses typical of a lot of folk songs. I never thought of it as much more than a quasi-nonsense love song. Robert Cantwell, however, has this to say in his book about the folk revival, When We Were Good:



"[W]hy does Bascom wish to be a mole in the ground? Perhaps because he is a man not at home where destiny has placed him. He has been in the “Bend,” quite likely a prison, too long, “with the rough and rowdy men” of whom, I think it is fair to say, he is not one. And he has had a bad experience with railroad men, who “drink up your blook like wine.” Even Tempe, his woman, doesn’t love him in the way he deserves, wanting him only when he can supply the cash for the nine-dollar shawl she covets; that doesn’t prevent him, though, from loving her… To hear her sing, he would wish himself not only a contemptible mole but a vile “lizard in the spring.”



A lizard, a mole: Bascom is not the first man in love to feel his rodent-like unworthiness and reptilian cupidity… Nor is he the first to feel, under the influence of love, the roughness of his own sex, or whose heart has learned the arcane and curious language in which nature, in the form of mole and lizard, little miracles of creation and perhaps, in the metaphorical field of sexuality, covert genital symbols, both speaks to his condition and brings him into unconscious sympathy with his beloved."



Indeed.

---

 

Wow, this analysis falls into the category of excessive overthinking. 

And in the words of the great philosopher Groucho Marx:

"Sometimes a cigar is just a good smoke."

 

The singer wants to be a mole in the ground because of it's destructive capabilities. 

The singer wants to "tear the whole place down.'

---

But Groucho wasn't aware of the correlation of smoking and cancer when he said that.  

I don't think it's all about rebellion. A rebel would stand and fight, not withdraw and hide.

---

"A rebel would stand and fight not withdraw and hide."

Really?

That is what the British thought, until they faced the American rebels who practiced guerilla warfare.

Guerilla warfare can defeat the mightiest army: Viet Cong defeated US forces in SE Asia, and Afghan fighters defeated the US in Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires. 

Or perhaps you never read Sun Tzu: "Attack your enemy where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."

Another Sun Tzu quote: "Hold out bait to entice your enemy, feign disorder and crush him."

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Oh I agree, the IRA won independence for three of the four provinces ruled by the British in 1916 with such hit and run tactics in Ireland.   However the difference is that such guerilla warfare however small is organised with a brigade commander controlling a small cell of operatives.  Moles, on the other hand are territorial and live solitary lives except when they mate .  Sometimes they share runs  but if two males meet up they fight ferociously.   They do not band together for a common cause.  

I used to work at a country house as a gardener in south Staffordshire which has very Sandy soil.  Moles were a problem  there  as their excavation work below the lawns made them unsightly and eventually uneven. No matter how many times I put cyanide down their runs, every week there were still a dozen mole hills the following week.   In the end the owner of the estate got a professional mole man in to deal with them.  He came once a week with traps and duly came back each week to check them and caught several a week yet the mole hills never diminished.   I asked him why if he kept catching them, was there still mole hills everywhere and he said because as soon as he kills one, another mole from another territory moves in to the tunnel runs.  He never told the property owners, that he would never get rid of the moles.  He was happy to collect £15 a carcass every time he came.  

 

As Jasper Carrot once said, there's only one way to kill a mole......blow his bloody head off.

youtu.be/93mgyE2ctwg

Edited by - Hay-on-Wye on 03/03/2021 12:33:50

Mister Lucky - Posted - 03/03/2021:  12:49:28

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

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Originally posted by Mister Lucky

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Originally posted by Hay-on-Wye

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Originally posted by Mister Lucky

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Originally posted by UncleClawhammer

Honestly, I think the lyrics are there more to be sung than understood, and it's just a mix and match of disconnected verses typical of a lot of folk songs. I never thought of it as much more than a quasi-nonsense love song. Robert Cantwell, however, has this to say in his book about the folk revival, When We Were Good:



"[W]hy does Bascom wish to be a mole in the ground? Perhaps because he is a man not at home where destiny has placed him. He has been in the “Bend,” quite likely a prison, too long, “with the rough and rowdy men” of whom, I think it is fair to say, he is not one. And he has had a bad experience with railroad men, who “drink up your blook like wine.” Even Tempe, his woman, doesn’t love him in the way he deserves, wanting him only when he can supply the cash for the nine-dollar shawl she covets; that doesn’t prevent him, though, from loving her… To hear her sing, he would wish himself not only a contemptible mole but a vile “lizard in the spring.”



A lizard, a mole: Bascom is not the first man in love to feel his rodent-like unworthiness and reptilian cupidity… Nor is he the first to feel, under the influence of love, the roughness of his own sex, or whose heart has learned the arcane and curious language in which nature, in the form of mole and lizard, little miracles of creation and perhaps, in the metaphorical field of sexuality, covert genital symbols, both speaks to his condition and brings him into unconscious sympathy with his beloved."



Indeed.

---

 

Wow, this analysis falls into the category of excessive overthinking. 

And in the words of the great philosopher Groucho Marx:

"Sometimes a cigar is just a good smoke."

 

The singer wants to be a mole in the ground because of it's destructive capabilities. 

The singer wants to "tear the whole place down.'

---

But Groucho wasn't aware of the correlation of smoking and cancer when he said that.  

I don't think it's all about rebellion. A rebel would stand and fight, not withdraw and hide.

---

"A rebel would stand and fight not withdraw and hide."

Really?

That is what the British thought, until they faced the American rebels who practiced guerilla warfare.

Guerilla warfare can defeat the mightiest army: Viet Cong defeated US forces in SE Asia, and Afghan fighters defeated the US in Afghanistan, the graveyard of empires. 

Or perhaps you never read Sun Tzu: "Attack your enemy where he is unprepared, appear where you are not expected."

Another Sun Tzu quote: "Hold out bait to entice your enemy, feign disorder and crush him."

---

Oh I agree, the IRA won independence for three of the four provinces ruled by the British in 1916 with such hit and run tactics in Ireland.   However the difference is that such guerilla warfare however small is organised with a brigade commander controlling a small cell of operatives.  Moles, on the other hand are territorial and live solitary lives except when they mate .  Sometimes they share runs  but if two males meet up they fight ferociously.   They do not band together for a common cause.  

I used to work at a country house as a gardener in south Staffordshire which has very Sandy soil.  Moles were a problem  there  as their excavation work below the lawns made them unsightly and eventually uneven. No matter how many times I put cyanide down their runs, every week there were still a dozen mole hills the following week.   In the end the owner of the estate got a professional mole man in to deal with them.  He came once a week with traps and duly came back each week to check them and caught several a week yet the mole hills never diminished.   I asked him why if he kept catching them, was there still mole hills everywhere and he said because as soon as he kills one, another mole from another territory moves in to the tunnel runs.  He never told the property owners, that he would never get rid of the moles.  He was happy to collect £15 a carcass every time he came.  

 

As Jasper Carrot once said, there's only one way to kill a mole......blow his bloody head off.

youtu.be/93mgyE2ctwg

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Many creatures are territorial and only band together out of necessity. 

Many Tribes in Afghanistan hate each other, but the enemy of my enemy is my friend. 

I could give many more examples, but you get the idea.