Pretty Saro.

I have, through my friend Mary, been introduced to Appalachian Folk Songs. The modern day singer Feist in fact, takes an Appalachian ballad and uses it in her song "Sea Lion Woman"...in reality, the song is called "See-Line Woman". Listen to the original, it's gorgeous.

Looking more and more into it, artists like Jerry Garcia and Bob Dylan have covered a bunch of the songs. "Handsome Molly" and "Dreadful Wind and Rain" are a couple of them, making me more and more curious about the influence this group of people have on our culture now. What is lost, and what have we kept? From the mid to late 1910's, British folklorist Cecil Sharp collected about 200 songs, but it's impossible that everything has been saved.

Ballads tell a story, generally a love story. This tradition has been passed down through years of immigration from Europe--primarily the British Isles. Some of the people of Appalachia intermarried with the Cherokee and other Native tribes. No doubt this affected the music as well, perhaps creates the interesting keys these songs are sung in. The music is weird, warped and beautiful.

Listen to "Pretty Saro" on YouTube. This performance of Iris DeMent gives me chills every time.