performed by Okkervil River
key: E aeolian
mode: E F# G A B C D
melody: S l t d r m s l' t'
form: strophic
meter: duple
English function names: tonic subtonic
Tagg (modified): home counterpoise (away)
Riemann: t dP
Scale degrees: i VII
Chords: Em D
Em D
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
Em D Em
|/ / |/ / |/ / |/ / |
Since I primarily teach middle school kids, I'm required to be vigilant about lyrical content. This is not a song I would use with middle school kids. But if you are an adult following along at home, you can take responsibility for dealing with the lyrical content yourself. That's a content warning: the lyrics require an ability to parse ideas about death and violence.
Singing about death is hard, particularly when it's a song about murder, particularly when the song is based in fact. Singing about death is important, I think. The House Carpenter allows us to sing about death through the use of paranormal fantasy — and singing it in the major-esque mixolydian lightens it up, too.1 We get some needed distance that way. Is it more or less tragic than simply singing straight up about an awful person? Should we humanize said-awful-person? I've come to the conclusion that awful people are people who never got the help they needed. That doesn't excuse their behavior, but perhaps we need to look there, where they needed help, in order to attempt to keep such things from happening again. It may help to sing about it, too.
In keeping with many Appalachian songs, in many versions below the third scale degree doesn't show up in the melody. It's very apparent in the Iron Mountain String Band version below.2 However, this song is more often played in a true minor or a true major key (using three chords), with a dominant chord in the counterpoise spot in second phrase.
other recordings:
Doug Wallin, Classic Mountain Songs, Smithsonian Folkways. Db minor. Unaccompanied.
Doc & Merle Watson, The Definitive, Concord Sugar Hill. F minor.
Doc Watson, Doc Watson, Vanguard Records. B minor.
*****
Roscoe Holcomb, The High Lonesome Sound, Smithsonian Folkways. D aeolian.
Okkervil River, Julie Doiron & Okkervil River, Acuarela. E aeolian.
Pentangle, Reflection, Transatlantic. A aeolian.
Bert Jansch, Crimson Moon, Earth Recordings. G aeolian.
Iron Mountain String Band, An Old Time Southern Mountain String Band, Smithsonian Folkways. A aeolian. Heterophonic.
*****
Paul Clayton, Folk Ballads of the English Speaking World, Smithsonian Folkways. Eb major.
Shirley Collins, Sweet England, Fledg'ling. F# major.
Think about the number of Johnny Cash songs about terrible things that are in major tonalities.
In fact, I must admit that with my classical ears, I have a devil of a time pinning down a tonic note on this one! To me, it sounds like it's in G major and doesn't end on the tonic, but it didn't seem right to classify it that way. I'd be curious to know how others parse this. I would willingly accept an argument that this should not be analyzed as one would analyze common practice music, that it requires a different theoretical framework.
I love that Roscoe Holcomb recording so much. If folks like him, you should check out Tim Eriksen, who is a great Holcomb admirer and also does this tune well. https://timeriksen.bandcamp.com/track/omie-wise-2