So I was browsing through old threads and it started me thinking, which can be dangerous sometimes. I ran across something on music which triggered a memory. A few days ago I was sorting some of my books while listening to a CD of the Weavers. One of the songs was “On Top of Old Smokey”. Now, I’ve been familiar with this ditty since grade school music class but I’d never actually heard all the lyrics before. You know what? It’s a damn depressing song. See? It so happens I really like folk music and have listened to many recordings of the same. I’d just never noticed before how generally melancholy nearly all folk songs are. Heartbroken lovers, treachery and dead people abound in these things. Anyone remember “Barbra Allen”? Boy withers and dies because girl won’t return his love. “Frankie and Johnny”? There’s a relationship gone bad. “Streets of Laredo”? Pretty gruesome, a ride-by shooting perhaps. Oh, I know there are some fluff pieces like Big Rock Candy Mountain, say, but by and large a lot of folk songs are just downers. I wonder sometimes if that’s just because they reflect the times in which they were written. Life was pretty hard and pretty sad for most folks.
I don’t know.
But I have got to either start listening to cheerier music or stop thinking so much.