It’s empty in the valley of your heart The sun, it rises slowly as you walk Away from all the fears And all the faults you’ve left behind The harvest left no food for you to eat You cannibal, you meat-eater, you see But I have seen the same I know the shame in your
Being a coal miner’s daughter myself, I’m contractually obligated to bring up Loretta Lynn whenever I can swing it. But I’d like to think I’d do it anyway. Even if I weren’t. When you grow up on in a holler like I did, wanting to overcome the mountains with your art, you sometimes think there’s
A few months ago I wrote about the wayfaring stranger. I’ve heard it all my life but it wasn’t until the White Stripes’ Jack sang it in Cold Mountain that I fell for it. I’m listening to The Raconteurs right now. But I thought I’d post a little video of their lead boy singing bluegrass.
I grew up in a family full of wayfarin strangers. Gnarled old men who I didn’t know but should have – because Pa said they were kin – sang the words with such strength of conviction that I always saw the story as their own. A cousin even adopted it as his anthem when we
