1. |
orpheus, 1893
02:49
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LYRICS
Lay down your lyre, Orpheus / lay down your harp and go
To the furnaces of Allegheny / never more to roam
Say goodbye to mother dear / and everything you know
To journey far across the sea / and work the steel you’ll go
I hear the lakes of iron ore / burn brighter than the sun
That never shines on those / that live to tend the mills, not one
Think of your Eurydice / whose passage you must pay
And promises you made to me / to send for me one day
Close your eyes and dream a dream / beneath that soot black sky
Of olive trees and melody / and all you left behind
Don’t look back dear Orpheus / and die of heartsick grief
I know your words and heart are true / your promises you’ll keep
I’ll meet you there across the sea / where valley lilies grow
Where the waters of the Allegheny / meet the Ohio
I’ll pray Kyrie Eleison / for God to keep you well
Until that bright tomorrow / when I join you there in Hell
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2. |
john murphy's grave
02:58
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On Clyde's bonny banks as I lately did wander
To the village of Blanter I chanced for to roam
I saw a young lady all dressed in deep mourning
sadly lamenting the fate of her love
I stepped up to her and I said my young lady
Pray tell me the cause of your sorrow and woe
I heard you lamenting the fate of some young man
His name and what happened I'd like for to know
While sobbing and sighing / at length she made answer
John Murphy kind sir was my true lover's name
Twenty-one years of age and of mild good behavior
To work in the mines of High Blanter he came
On the twenty-and-second day of October
In health and in strength to his labor did go
On that fatal morning without any warning
Two hundred and ten in their deaths did lie low
Never again will I walk with my lover
With hand locked in hand on the banks of the Clyde
Where we told the long love tales and pulled the wild daisies
It was there I consented I would be his bride
Spring will return and the flowers will blossom
On John Murphy's Grave, I will scatter them there
My tears they will water the wild little daises
On the grave of John Murphy, so bold and so fair.
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3. |
sweet white pine
06:10
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LYRICS:
Faithless one, oh faithless one / how little can you know?
The good book says that all of us / will reap just what we sow
I loved you and I trusted you / that was all in vain
Oh, God is there no remedy / to ease my mortal pain?
I worked the tavern late one night / in old Shamokin town
Some raftsmen came in the month of May / to ride the river down
By moonlight they took refuge / within our shanty walls
And the one who played the fiddle / was the finest of them all
The men would drink and play / the ladies danced around the room
The fiddle player’s eyes met mine / I asked for one more tune
He set his instrument aside / and took me in his arms
I knew then that I loved that lumberman / with all my heart
He danced his way into my bed / by morning, he was gone
With promises he would return / the next time spring did come
I kept his overshirt / the one that smelled like sweet white pine
And labored in the promise / that someday he would be mine
Summer’s heat and winter’s freeze / again did bloom to spring
They all returned to Shamokin / I heard the fiddle sing
But when I saw him dancing / with another in his arms
The lumberman did seal my fate / of death by broken heart
Up the stairs I flew / the cyanide gripped in my hand
I found a little closet / and I shut myself within
I donned his overshirt / the one that smelled like sweet white pine
And drank each drop of poison down
And etched out these few lines
Another love has won your heart / my hope and life are gone
My final wish - be true to her / I’ll die before the dawn
Faithless one, oh faithless one / how little can you know?
The good book says that all of us will reap just what we sow
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Jodi Jones Carrboro, North Carolina
Humble songstress and spinner of tall tales.
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