Buffalo Springfield Again

Neil Young returns to folk-rock roots

Aug 17, 2016

Neil Young returns to folk-rock roots

INTRODUCTION

Neil Young is one of the most enduring rock musicians of all time. In a career that has spanned five decades, Young has experienced the highs and lows of stardom. From the success of 1972’s Harvest to his commercial nadir in the early 1980s, Young has puzzled critics, frustrated fans, and defied expectations. Young has cultivated the image of a loner, from his reticence to speak to the press and to his lack of communication with band members.[1]

This paper will attempt to justify why Neil Young is an artist worthy of consideration in the canon of modern folk music by exploring Young’s personal history, political activism, and music. The latter will primarily focus on tracks from his 2012 LP, Americana. An album composed entirely of cover songs, a first for a Neil Young record. The paper will focus primarily on three tracks from Americana: “Tom Dula,” “Clementine,” and “Oh Susannah.” Other cuts from the album will be considered for discussion of Young’s construction of Americana and the role of nostalgia both in his career and folk music in general. Young traditionally is an artist that does not look back as fans awaiting the second installment of Young’s long in the work Archives series can attest.[2]

In his book, Romancing The Folk: Public Memory & American Roots Music, Benjamin Filene asserts that Dylan consistently returns to his roots as a folk musician. These nods to his own past are sometimes more overt, such as Good As I Been To You and World Gone Wrong, two albums featuring Dylan covering the folk and blues songs that influenced. Roots music is Dylan’s touchstone, he returned to it first in 1968 with John Wesley Harding and it informs his more recent work, such as the late career trilogy of Time Out Of Mind[3], “Love And Theft,” and Modern Times. Dylan references his past in more oblique ways, such as his quoting of lines from Bascom Lamar Lunsford’s “I Wish I Was A Mole In The Ground” in the Blonde On Blonde cut, “Stuck Inside Of Mobile With The Memphis Blues Again.”[4] Or structuring “Maggie’s Farm” in imitation of The Bently Boys’ “Down On Penny’s Farm.”[5]

This paper will explore Young’s attitude towards the roots music of his past and explore whether he holds it in the same reverence as Dylan by examining his approach to his folk music covers as well as the imagery and liner notes of Americana. The parallels between the careers of Dylan and Young are worth noting and the former is certainly an influence on the latter,[6] though their approaches towards songwriting differ.[7]

BIOGRAPHY

Neil Percival Young was born November 12, 1945 in Toronto, Canada. As a child, Young contracted polio and survived though it left him with a frail body.
Young’s parents got divorced when he was 12. He moved with his mother to Winnipeg, Manitoba. Young began playing guitar in high school as part of a group called The Squires. The band played instrumentals in the style of such groups as The Shadows and The Ventures. The arrival of The Beatles in North America lead to change in the group’s sound, instrumentals were out and writing and performing your own material was in.

It was at a recording session of some original material that Young first met criticism of his voice. Harry Taylor, the man engineering the session told Young, “You’re a good guitar player, kid — but you’ll never make it as a singer.”[8] The Squires moved to Fort William and began playing at a venue called Fourth Dimension. It was during this time that Young began arranging folk songs for rock & roll. David Rea an acoustic guitar player in the Allen Ward Trio, recalled seeing a performance by Young at the venue.

“ ’I remember it just like it was yesterday,” said Rea. ‘I walked into 4-D and Neil was doing this incredibly outré version of ‘Tom Dooley’ — he was working with his guitar and voice in what I recall were parallel thirds, fifths and seconds. Really wild stuff, very heavy sound, very heavy plangent, plunging chords, like a dirge — imagine being in this little cinderblock club in the Lakehead, teenage customer sitting around…it was really somethin’ else.’ At that time Rea was a bit of a folk purist, yet the electricity Young added seemed perfect for the ancient murder ballad.”[9]

Young spent time in Toronto attempting to make it as a folksinger. This proved difficult, as membership in the local musicians union was required in order to play at venues. Young was also dissatisfied musically with the city.

“…[M]usical camps were strictly divided, and there would be no outlet for the weird crossbreeding Young had been developing in Fort Williams. ‘I didn’t see much folk-rock in Toronto,’ Young said decades later. ‘It was either folk or rock.’”[10]

While in Toronto, Young joined a group called The Mynah Birds, fronted by a then unknown Rick James. The group landed a contract with Motown, but disbanded after James was arrested for being AWOL from the Navy.[11] Feeling unsatisfied by his career as a folk singer and due to the collapse of the band, Young headed to California on March 22, 1966, accompanied by Mynah Birds bassist, Bruce Palmer, who would go on to play bass in Young’s next group: Buffalo Springfield.[12]

Buffalo Springfield was a folk-rock group that would mark the beginning of the long musical collaboration between Stephen Still and Neil Young. The two had crossed each other’s path during Young’s days in Toronto, but Buffalo Springfield was the first time the two had played in a band together. The group lasted a mere two years; infighting and personnel changes quickly sealed the group’s fate. The pressures of stardom were a little too much for Young to handle and he began experiencing epileptic seizures on stage. The rest of the band resented Young for this and believed he was sabotaging them on purpose, which increased the stress on Young and increased the chance for epileptic episodes.

Following his stint in Buffalo Springfield, Young embarked on a solo career. Early on his career, Young made the acquaintance of an L.A. band called The Rockets. Young paired down the group to drummer Ralph Molina, bassist Billy Talbot, and guitarist Danny Whitten and redubbed them Crazy Horse. Young found critical and commercial acclaim in the 1970s, making records solo, backed by Crazy Horse, or with Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young. It was during the early 80s when Young’s career took a critical and commercial drubbing, with a series of genre records, that sold so poorly, it lead to Young’s own label suing him for not making Neil Young records.[13] Young revived his reputation at the end of the 80s and the beginning of the 90s with the one-two punch of 1989’s Freedom and 1990’s Ragged Glory. The 90s was a big decade for Young; he was lauded by bands coming out of Seattle, Washington and dubbed the Godfather of Grunge. The 2000s were a more trying decade for Young. His father passed away in 2005 and shortly after, Young underwent surgery to treat a brain aneurysm and nearly bled to death from his femoral artery.[14] Since his brush with death, Young’s projects have turned more nostalgic. He reunited with the surviving members of Buffalo Springfield and this year, he released his first album with Crazy Horse since 2003’s Greendale and went on his first tour with his long time back band since 2004.

AMERICANA

Young’s first album of 2012 was released on June 5. It’s unique as far as Neil Young albums go because it his first one ever to not feature any of his original songs. The imagery used on the album is ones typically associated with the Old West. The inside jacket of the album features a painting by F.F. Palmer titled “Across The Continent: Westward the Course of Empire Takes Its Way.” The back of the album features the Crazy Horse logo superimposed over an image of wagons headed westward. The album cover’s artwork is a bit problematic and raises some questions about Young’s intent. Native American imagery has long played a role in Young’s career, dating back to the Buffalo Springfield days.

“There I was making 120 bucks a week at the Whisky as a musician. … I’ve always liked fringe jackets. I went out and bought one right away with some pants and a turtleneck shirt. Oh yeah, I thought I was heavy. I wore them on some TV shows and whenever we worked. Then I went to this place on Santa Monica Boulevard near La Cienega. I saw this great Comanche war shirt, the best jacket I’ve ever seen. I had two more made. The group was Western, the name Buffalo Springfield came off a tractor, so it all fit. I was the Indian. That’s when it was cool to be an Indian.”[15]

A September 2012 article on Indian Country addresses the issue of Neil Young’s use of Native imagery. There’s a long history of non-Natives dressing in Native garb, from the Boston Tea Party to the hippies to hipsters wearing headdresses and war paint at parties in Williamsburg. It’s a thorny issue. Those using Native imagery might believe they are honoring Natives, but they are further contributing to marginalization of an oppressed group. One especially egregious issue is the sexualization of Native women in tattoos and by non-Native models using Native imagery, as Native American women are one of the groups most vulnerable to sexual assault.[16] Young’s use of Native imagery, while not entirely okay shows greater respect and knowledge of Native culture than other occurrences and Young refrains from reducing Natives to stereotypes. The album cover features the faces of Young and Crazy Horse imposed on the faces of Geronimo and several other Native Americans. Young’s liner notes give some information about the image.

“The photograph of Geronimo driving a car on the last page of the April 2004 issue of American History was actually taken on June 11, 1905 at the Miller brothers’ 101 Ranch, located southwest of Ponca City, OK The car is a Lacomobile and the Indian in full headdress to Geronimo’s left is Edward Le Clair, Sr., a Ponca Indian. Geronimo so admired Le Clair’s beaded vest that it was presented to him later in the day. When Geronimo died in 1909, he was buried in the vest. The photograph was taken during a special 101 Ranch show for the U.S. press. Thousands of newspaper editors and reporters flocked to it. Artist Tom Wilkes impressed modern photographs of Neil Young, Ralph Molina, Billy Talbot and Poncho Sampedro over the faces in the original photograph in 1975 for an album cover. Never used as a cover at that time, the art was rescued from a 2010 warehouse fire, and now has been used to create the Americana cover.[17]

Young also devotes a block of text to Crazy Horse in the liner notes.

“Crazy Horse did not like white men because they encroached upon his beloved wide-open prairie. He detested their developments that chased away the buffalo his people depended on for food and clothing. When the cold came roaring down the Plains, the buffalo faced those raging winds with its head into the white storm, as if it were cleansing itself from hardship and discomfort. Those were the same winds blowing against Crazy Horse’s face as the footprints of the white man stamped more and more across the land.”[18]

Young’s use of Native imagery is definitely a form of cultural appropriation, but one done with respect and knowledge of the culture he is borrowing from. That doesn’t make it right, but perhaps Young gets a pass merely for being Neil Young. Young’s use of the imagery and the liner notes are helpful in reminding listeners that the past wasn’t all it’s cracked up to be and there are some facets of American history that get glossed over. A statement Young made about the album in an interview with American Songwriter supports this assertion.

“Every one of these songs [on Americana] has verses that have been ignored. And those are the key verses, those are the things that make these songs live. They’re a little heavy for kindergarteners to be singing. The originals are much darker, there’s more protest in them — the other verses in ‘This Land Is Your Land’ are very timely, or in ‘Clementine,’ the verses are so dark. Almost every one has to do with people getting killed, with life-or-death struggles. You don’t hear much about that; they’ve been made into something much more light. So I moved them away from that gentler interpretation. With new melodies and arrangements, we could use the folk process to invoke the original meanings for this generation.”[19]

In general, the term Americana refers to images, institutions, and cultural artifacts that best summarize the history and culture. Here’s how the Grammy’s defines Americana, with regard to music.

“Americana is contemporary music that incorporates elements of various American roots music styles, including country, roots- rock, folk, bluegrass, R&B and blues, resulting in a distinctive roots-oriented sound that lives in a world apart from the pure forms of the genres upon which it may draw. While acoustic instruments are often present and vital, Americana also often uses a full electric band.”[20]

The Grammy’s description of the music style seems apt for describing the sound of much of Neil Young’s career, though there are least a few instances where the label doesn’t fit.[21] Using this definition, one can conclude that Young’s song choices meet the requirements, though some of his choices are bit more idiosyncratic than one might expect for an album of folk music covers. Young includes a cover of a doo-wop song, “Get A Job,” and explains its presence on the album in the liner notes.

“A song about a man who has not been able to find work and is assumed lazy and a liar by his woman. ‘Get A Job’ is included in Americana because it is a genuine folk song with all of the true characteristics. This song was written by Richard Lewis of the Silhouettes, although credit is shared with the whole group because they did the vocal arrangement. The hit recording performed by ‘The Silhouettes’ was released in 1957. The Americana version follows the original arrangement.” [22]

It’s interesting that Young considers “Get A Job” to be a folk song. While one might have difficulty arguing for it to be described as a folk song, it certainly fits into the Americana category. Some features of the song could place it up consideration as a piece of folk music, though one must expand one’s definition of folk music a bit. Merely reading the lyrics, one could assume the song was an artifact from the Depression, a lamentation about the inability of a man to find work. There is a strong correlation in the perception of a man’s masculinity and the type of job, if any, he holds. The narrator of the song is emasculated by the woman in his life for his inability to find a job as seen in the lyrics “And when I go back to the house/I hear the woman’s mouth/Preaching and a crying/Tell me that I’m lying ‘bout a job/That I never could find.” It’s a song especially relevant in the current economic climate when so many people are out of work and many of those with college degrees are under-employed or unable to find work in their field. The lyrics have a timeless, universal quality that make an excellent case for this some day being considered a folk song. A song’s popularity should not be the only factor in deciding if it should be considered as folk music. Who it was written by and for what purpose is important. It’s not a Tin-Pan Alley song, though it is quite catchy, the opening doo-wop syllables are a memorable hook. A strong melody and pop sensibilities should not be negatives when addressing if a piece of music belongs in the folk canon. Certainly, many of Woody Guthrie songs featured memorable melodies and hooks.

The musical structure of the song supports its inclusion in folk music. It’s built on a pretty simple twelve-bar blues, a trait common to many folk songs. The Crazy Horse version is a note for note cover of the original. Musically, it’s more restrained than other songs on the album. The main focus is on the vocals, the most important aspect of doo-wop music, which had origins as a capella music sung by youths on the street corner.

The guitar on the song is distorted, but not to the extent of other songs on the album. Even the guitar solo is restrained; it mimics the sax solo on the original by The Silhouettes. Young has dabbled in this style of music before on his 1983 album, Everybody’s Rockin.’ Like his contemporaries, the music of the 1950s is an important touchstone for Neil Young.

Young is normally not one to reflect on his past, so it’s interesting that he chose to cover a number of folk songs he played in his days in The Squires or doing acoustic shows in Toronto. The first song on Americana is a cover “Oh Susannah.”

“This song written by Stephen Foster was originally performed on September 11, 1847. The Americana version was arranged with a new melody by Tim Rose and was originally performed by ‘The Big Thorns’ in 1963, and updated by ‘Time Rose and the Thorns’ in 1964, This band did a lot of arrangements of folk songs that were change to be rock and roll song and called folk-rock. Tim Rose was one of the pioneers of folk-rock. Much of the music of Americana is based on this idea.”[23]

Young chose to start the album with this song because of how much it influenced what he was doing with The Squires.

“[The Thorns] were the original folk-rock band, okay? Tim rose and two other guys- no drums, but they had bass, two guitars, I think it was. They did some really nice stuff and sang really well. One of my favorites was ‘Oh Susannah’ — they did this arrangement that was bizarre. It was in a minor key, which completely changed everything — and it was rock and roll. So that idea spawned arrangements of all these other songs for me. I did minor versions of them all. We got into it. That was a certain Squires stage that never got recorded. Wish there were tapes of those shows. We used to do all this stuff, a whole kinda music- folk-rock. We took famous old songs like ‘Clementine’ ‘She’ll Be Comin’ ‘Round The Mountain,’ ‘Tom Dooley,’ and we did them all in minor keys based on the Tim Rose arrangement of ‘Oh Susannah.’[24]

One thing that’s immediately noticeable about the Neil Young & Crazy Horse version is the lyrics. The song incorporates verses that have been forgotten by the general public. Compare the lyrics of the Crazy Horse version with the one used by folk-rock group The Byrds. In both cases, the lyrics have been cleaned up from the Stephen Foster original, a minstrel song, written in a parody of African-American Vernacular English. Perhaps it’s just a matter of coincidence, but it’s amusing that Young starts the album with a song about the southern United States and Alabama specifically, two locations Young wrote about in “Southern Man” and “Alabama,” two songs that were highly critical of the Jim Crow laws in the south and of the racism of southerners.

Musically, it’s vintage Neil Young, distorted guitars and a simple time signature. The new melody has a real sense of groove, something the original melody lacks. The groove reminiscent of Afro-Cuban jazz, emphasized by drummer Ralph Molina playing a lot on the hi-hats and cymbals. It’s a restrained performance from Crazy Horse. Young sings lead on the song, while the rest of the band sing the song’s title over and over. Young is joined on the chorus by the rest of the band and what it appears to a woman’s voice, possibly his wife, Pegi Young, who appears on a few other cuts on Americana. “Oh Susannah” features an extremely repetitive riff, which helps to give it a solid groove. Crazy Horse provides the foundation, giving Young room to take the occasional short guitar solo, but mostly, he sticks with the rest of the band. At the end of the song, Young expresses his pleasure with the song; describing it as funky and saying it gets into a good groove.

Another song Young revisits from his days in The Squires is “Tom Dula,” a song with great importance to folk music, as it was the Kingston Trio version that jumpstarted the folk revival of the late 50s and early 60s.[25]

“This folk song, writer unknown, is based on the 1866 murder of a woman named Laura Foster, who was stabbed to death with a knife in Wilkes Count, North Carolina. Tom Dula, a Confederate solider returned from the war and Laura Foster’s love, was convicted of her murder and hanged May 1, 1868. Grayson, mentioned in the song, was instrumental in supplying information to the posse that eventually found Dula. Dula had another lover, prior to his leaving for the war, named Anne Melton. It was her comments that led to the discovery of Foster’s body. She was charged with murder but was acquitted based on Dula’s word. Dula’s last statement on the gallows was ‘Gentlemen, do you see this hand? I didn’t harm a hair on the girl’s head.’ Anne Melton died insane a few years later, The Americana arrangement is from ‘The Squires’ with a new melody and the original lyrics.”[26]

Musically, Young’s version of “Tom Dula” is quite different from folk-pop version of “The Kingston Trio.” It opens with the band chanting the songs title, evoking images of an angry mob in search of the title character. Instrumentally, it’s a typical Crazy Horse song, loud distorted guitars and a simple, repetitive drum pattern. It’s excellent text setting on behalf of Neil Young & Crazy Horse. The minor key of the song and the aggressive playing give the song an air of menace that evokes the fears and dangers facing the Tom Dula. It’s a far cry from the Kingston Trio version, which has a catchy pop melody that might cause one to overlook the lyrics. The Crazy Horse version is much longer than the Kingston Trio version. Turning a song into a drawn out jam is typical of Crazy Horse.

It’s not the first time Young, has turned a murder ballad into a jam, on his first album with Crazy Horse he did so with “Down By The River,” a song clocking in at 9:28. A nice contrast with the low-end voices is the voice of Pegi Young at various points during the song. Is it an effective cover? I’d say so, Young quite clearly makes it his own by playing it in a style unmistakably his and doing so, breathes life into a song that otherwise might be viewed as a old chestnut. When Young sings, “Met her on the mountain/There I took her life/ Met her on the mountain/Stabbed her with my knife,” it contains an air of menace lacking in the Kingston Trio version.

CONCLUSION

One can conclude that Young treats roots music with sincerity. Clearly something about the folk songs he performed decades ago have resonated with him. It seems uncharacteristic of Young to trade in irony, at least in his music. One can find a bit of irony at play in the imagery of the album, the liner notes, and the fact that Young incorporates verses from these songs that were discarded for being too controversial. Young has the same respect for folk music that Dylan does and Young’s music comes from a place of deep sincerity. “His best songs are great not because they place chords together in clever and interesting ways, but because they bypass the intellect and go straight for the heartstrings. His most memorable performances are not his most controlled and pitch-perfect, but those that bring a searing emotional intensity to the song.”[27]The style of nostalgia of nostalgia offered by Young on Americana is one that looks fondly on the past while making sure not to gloss over the misdeeds and atrocities of a bygone age. The songs Young chose are relevant to modern conditions and speak to many of the fears and concerns of his audience in a time of economic uncertainty. These folks songs endured because they are well written and speak to the possibility of a brighter tomorrow as they remind the listener that there have been difficult times before.Young’s description of the buffalo standing in the cold seems to echo his own sentiment and refusal to compromise himself as artist by going along with the current trends. Young is at his greatest when he is true to himself and his art, and Americana is no exception.

Get A Job

Yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip, bmm

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na, ahh-do

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na

Ahh, yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip

Mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum, get a job

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na

Well every morning about this time (Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na)

She gets me out of bed, a-crying get a job (Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na)

After breakfast everyday she throws the want ads right my way

And never fails to say — get a job

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na, ahh-do

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na

Ahh, yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip

Mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum, get a job

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na

Lord, and when I get the paper I read it through and through

I, my girl never fail to see if there is any work for me…

I got to go back to the house, hear that woman’s mouth

Preachin’ and a cryin’, tell me that I’m lyin’ about a job

That I never could find

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na, ahh-do

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na

Ahh, yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip-yip

Mum-mum-mum-mum-mum-mum, get a job

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na

Lord, and when I get the paper I read it through and throu-ough

I, my girl never fail to see if there is any work for me…

I better go back to the house, hear that woman’s mouth

Preachin’ and a cryin’, tell me that I’m lyin’ about a job

That I never could find

Sha-na-na-na, sha-na-na-na-na, ahh-do

Oh! Susannah (Byrds version)

Oh! Susannah

Oh, don’t you cry for me

’Cause I come from Alabama

With a banjo on my knee

Well, it rained so hard the night I left

The weather it was dry

And it was so hot, I froze to death

Susannah, don’t you cry

Oh! Susannah

Oh, don’t you cry for me

’Cause I come from Alabama

With a banjo on my knee

Well, I come from Alabama

With a banjo on my knee

And I’m going to Louisiana

Susannah for to see

Oh! Susannah

Oh, don’t you cry for me

Yes, I come from Alabama

With a banjo on my knee

Well, it rained so hard the night I left

The weather it was dry

And it was so hot, I froze to death

Susannah, don’t you cry

Oh! Susannah

Oh, don’t you cry for me

’Cause I come from Alabama

With a banjo on my knee

Oh Susannah (Neil Young & Crazy Horse version)

Oh Susannah [x4 then repeated constantly throughout verses]

I had a dream the other night

Everything was still

I dreamed I saw Susannah

She was comin’ down the hill

Oh, oh, oh, Susannah

Don’t you cry for me (oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

’cause I come from Alabama with my B-A-N-J-O on my knee

(Oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

Buckwheat cake was in her mouth

The tear was in her eye

Says I’m comin’ from the South

Susannah don’t you cry

Oh, oh, oh, Susannah

Don’t you cry for me (oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

’cause I come from Alabama with a B-A-N-J-O on my knee

(Oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

Rained all night the day I left

The weather it was dry

Sun so hot I froze to death

Susannah don’t you cry

Oh, oh, oh, Susannah

Don’t you cry for me (oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

’cause I come from Alabama with my B-A-N-J-O on my knee

(Oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

I had a dream the other night

Everything was still

I dreamed I saw Susannah

She was comin’ down the hill

Oh, oh, oh, Susannah

Don’t you cry for me (oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

’cause I come from Alabama with my B-A-N-J-O on my knee

(Oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

Well I come from Alabama

With my banjo on my knee

I’m goin’ to Louisiana

My true love for to see

Oh, oh, oh, Susannah

Don’t you cry for me (oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

’cause I come from Alabama with my B-A-N-J-O on my knee

(Oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

Yeah, I come from Alabama with my B-A-N-J-O on my knee

(Oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

Yeah, I come from Alabama with my B-A-N-J-O on my knee

I come from Alabama with my B-A-N-J-O on my knee

(Oh Susannah, oh Susannah)

I come from Alabama with my B-A-N-J-O on my knee

Tom Dooley (Kingston Trio version)

Throughout history There’ve been many songs written about the eternal triangle
This next one tells the story of a Mr Grayson, a beautiful woman
And a condemned man named Tom Dooley…
When the sun rises tomorrow, Tom Dooley… must hang…

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you’re bound to die

I met her on the mountain
There I took her life
Met her on the mountain
Stabbed her with my knife

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you’re bound to die

This time tomorrow
Reckon where I’ll be
Hadn’t a-been for Grayson
I’d a-been in Tennessee

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you’re bound to die

This time tomorrow
Reckon where I’ll be
Down in some lonesome valley
Hangin’ from a white oak tree

Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you’re bound to die

Poor boy, you’re bound to die
Poor boy you’re bound to die
Poor boy, you’re bound to die…

Tom Dula (Neil Young & Crazy Horse)