Sorrow kills sorrow

A few weeks back I was in the car headed to the high school track where I run (because I'm an American, and that is what we do: we jump in our cars and drive to the places where we exercise) hopping from radio station to radio station, and finally settled on Prairie Home Companion as the least annoying thing. My timing, for once, was spot on: as I pulled into the parking lot, the band  Joy Kills Sorrow started into an exceptionally compelling  performance of an old country song.

Later that night I went hunting for their version of the song on the internet, and found a live performance on YouTube. The next day the Prairie Home Companion performance was put online. And since then I've been listening to the two versions quite alot. Over and over, in fact.

And over.


Here is my favorite version from YouTube:



The song is "Weary Blues From Waiting", a Hank Williams number (The Hank Williams original is here. Warning: link takes you to NSFW twang). The versions I've been listening to are by Joy Kills Sorrow, a group out of the Boston acoustic and bluegrass scene. A number of versions are available online, and though each is gorgeous, I've been picking out the subtleties that make one version "better" than another; and by "better" I just mean "more to my liking," My two favorites I've linked to here, the one from Prairie Home Companion and the live version in the video above, recorded in Denmark. The PHC performance has nicer solos and the vocals are more conventionally pretty. But I've come to prefer the YouTube one quite a bit more.

Indeed, just about everything about that performance completely enchants me. In particular, there is an edge to Emma Beaton's voice that cuts sharp, deep, and clean into the soul. And there is a moment that is just remarkable, when Beaton sings the final verse. She begins this verse around 2:47, and she sings the final two lines ("I think of all the things that might have been / God forgive me if I cry"), with affecting power and remarkable vocal control. Her voice darts about the words, as though driven by the hope that a sufficiently agile performance could both fully express and fully contain the crippling, painful despair.

And at that very moment banjoist Wesley Corbett lets out a quick laugh.  In a different time,with a different band, I might have thought the laugh reflected an overly ironic appreciation of the music they were playing, and especially of the fairly trite nature of the conventionally sad lyric in that verse:

Through tears I watch young lovers
As they go strollin' by

I think of all the things that might have been
God forgive me if I cry.

I say trite, though I know all too well that dwelling on "all the things that might have been" can be a constant theme during times of profound sadness. But then sadness is remarkably simple that way: though it is surely complex neurologically, emotionally it is stubbornly plain, dull, and simple. What I mean though, is that the theme here, loss and sorrow and yearning is, in itself, not trite, despite being common. It is the lyrical expression that is simple and perhaps cliched, given the similar expressions in hundreds or thousands of pop song, country songs, and teenage diaries. It is the vocal performance that makes this into art.

But, getting back to the theme of irony, I don't think there is much irony in this performance. After the No-Depression movement (!) and the bluegrass revival of recent years, irony seems beside the point.
(For a dose of ironic country, see the The Rolling Stones  ("Far Away Eyes"); the results tend to be more novelty than anything else.Though in defense of the Stones, they did a far better job with "Wild Horses", after they had learned a thing or two from Gram Parsons).

I prefer to look at that laugh as a simple, joyful acknowledgement of the excellence of Beaton's singing, and especially of the way she finishes out that final verse. Here we might find some irony, as the lachrymose sentiments of the song give rise to a quick laugh and a smile. This is the result of some sublime musical alchemy:  a transmutation from something as base as cliched sorrow to something as refined and beautiful as joy. The philosopher's stone here, the substance that produces the transmutation from sorrow to joy is the very expression of that sorrow when delivered in the remarkable voice of Emma Beaton. 

Like I said, I've been watching this video quite a lot lately. And every time I hear Beaton sing the end of that final verse, I am glad I'm alive to hear it. Let's call it alchemy and leave it at that!