Summary of the Course

The course was a real eye opener in American folk music and the impact it had over the American culture. As an Asian American whose parents immigrated from China, I felt like I missed out on a lot of traditional American culture. I also never thought about folk music very much since it didn't seem very interesting compared to all the knowledge I had about classical music. However after taking the class I found a new way in appreciating folk music and understanding the complexities in each song. Even though the notes and chords may not be revolutionary, the emotion and story behind every song and every singer is unique and unable to be copied. I feel like the songs have changed me in becoming a more accepting and open person. Hopefully this will help me in my journey "down the long dusty road" and live a happier more fulfilling life.

Oh Careless Love

I immediately read through this song as a warning against young and careless love, and how it is different from true love in that it is harmful to both parties. After stumbling across Danica's post on careless love I thought it was extremely interesting that her view on the song was that it was praising careless love and how it is pure freedom and carefree spirit. I think it reflects the experiences in her life and how she still has yet to experience a love that ends badly.

In my drawing the saxophone represents the instrument in which musicians and people express themselves. There is a bouquet of flowers near the mouthpiece representing how there are always good intentions put into the actions, and how even careless love is still love, but without enough care the end result can end up in death and tragedy, as represented by the still smoking gun.

Goodnight, Irene

I always found the song Goodnight Irene, to be slightly mysterious and I wanted to portray that in my drawing. The origins of the song are unclear, linked to no particular event or person and I feel like that truly embodies the spirit of the American folk song, and folk songs all over the world. Lead Belly only mentions that he heard it once and now it is a popular song resung and covered by many musicians across the American folk song genre.

In my drawing I illustrated a man playing his guitar and singing towards the moon. I see the moon as an embodiment of Irene, since it is a peaceful symbol and the name Irene also evokes peacefulness from history and from its name origin.

Cocaine Habit Blues

After listening to this song for the first time, I wanted to draw something that represented how a person might feel on the effects of cocaine, and why it is so powerful that artists such as Lead Belly would bother to sing about it with such emotion. In other variations of the song such as Johnny Cash's, the lyrics go even darker and narrate how cocaine had influenced a young man to murder a woman. Drugs and women seem to go together in many of these songs, it makes me wonder if musicians back then face a similar problem to many famous musicians and celebrities today with drug problems. Domestic abuse is obviously extremely frowned upon in todays society, but probably a much more common issue when these songs were popular. Feelings of anger and regret are a common theme throughout, along with addiction and lack of self-restraint.

Louis Collins

For this song, I focused on the repeated line "The angels laid him away". I found the notion of angels extremely comforting but also ethereal and otherworldly. I wanted to show my own abstract representation of "angels" coming down and laying Louis Collins' soul to rest. Another line that fascinated me was "the people they dressed in red". I found red to be an unusual color associated to funerals, so I wanted a splatter of red in the painting as well. Louis Collins was mentioned to have been shot to death, so the red splatter represents his blood leaving him, overlaid over the angels coming to take him away.

Coming Through the Rye

For this song, I thought the more sexual undertone of the lyrics made it quite different and unique from the other songs. It somehow makes the time period more relatable when I imagine this song being sung by raunchy men in a tavern, just enjoying themselves and having a jolly time.

For my drawing I wanted to express the strong imagery of a sexual encounter happening in a field of rye. The wilderness of the rye adds to the mysteriousness of the event. It hides the mans face and just barely covers the more explicit parts of the body. It almost seems like he is drawing the viewer into the rye, and into the sexually unknown.

I also wanted to express the idea of the loss of innocence and equating it with entering the rye, and thus entering adulthood and sexuality. This theme was explored in the book, "Catcher in the Rye" where the main character mishears part of the song and imagines himself catching bodies in the rye. Specifically, he wants to catch the children from running out of the rye field and falling off the cliff, or metaphorically he wanted to keep them from being exposed to adulthood and the sins that it brought.

Banks of the Ohio

For the song, Banks of the Ohio, I wanted to capture how Willie, the main character in the song, sees his lover. It is fascinating to see how common place violent acts such as murder are. I imagine Appalachia, being such an isolated place, witnessed a lot more passion driven actions.

He is infatuated with her in his own way but when she rejects his marriage proposal, he goes blind with rage and kills her. In my drawing I show a romanticized face of a woman "bleeding" into the darkness. The black stripes are slashing away at her face, in the same way that I imagine Willie to be slashing away at her body.

The black stripes are also representing the fading of both her memory and also his rage and passion after the act. I imagine a lot of regret after he killed her and wanting to take back his actions, but he cannot stop the inevitability of ending her existence.