Within the expressive idiom of American folk music, is there a more compelling example of
literary naturalism than
Gillian Welch 's 1996 ballad,
Annabelle (on
Revival )?
In previous blog posts, in
Jurisdynamics and on
MoneyLaw , I've come close to answering the question. Now I wish to say, emphatically, in this forum and on
Danzig U.S.A. , that
Annabelle might well be the perfectly composed song in the Southern folk tradition:
Gillian Welch, Annabelle , Revival (1996) (live on YouTube ) We lease twenty acres and one ginny mule From the Alabama trust For half of the cotton and a third of the corn We get a handful of dustWe cannot have all things to please us No matter how we try Until we've all gone to Jesus We can only wonder why I had a daughter, called her Annabelle She's the apple of my eye Tried to give her something like I never had Didn't ever want to ever hear her cryWe cannot have all things to please us No matter how we try Until we've all gone to Jesus We can only wonder why When I'm dead and buried I'll take a hard life of tears From every day I've ever known Anna's in the churchyard she got no life at all She only got these words on a stoneWe cannot have all things to please us No matter how we try Until we've all gone to Jesus We can only wonder why
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