Long Black Veil
I'm sitting here with headphones on listening to Joan Baez sing the Lefty Frizzell classic 'Long Black Veil'.
You sit and listen to the words and think about it and it almost seems absurd. It's about a guy, Baez goes ahead and sings as a guy like the original words, that is accused of murdering someone one cold stormy night. 'The slayer that ran looked a lot like me', the verse goes.
The main character in it cannot defend himself even though he has an alibi. Nobly he remains silent because his one alibi was that he was in the arms of his best friend's wife. The woman involved, who now wears a long, black veil as she visits his grave, doesn't speak up either and the guy hangs.
But the song is so effective and you leave it as a don't try this at home. So many have sung this song. Lefty, Joan, Johnny Cash, even Bob Dylan's band. You get so caught up in it, even in this day when people are openly in the arms of their best friend's wife.
Maybe missing such nobility, however misplaced, even over a dastardly act. Maybe just a beautiful love song, but the song is haunting and you get so caught up in it. Vulnerable, human love, however misplaced, all the more vulnerable and human.
If they ever had a sequel though. You know that somewhere she told and her husband shot her dead anyway or something not noble. That's why a sequel was never written perhaps.
You sit and listen to the words and think about it and it almost seems absurd. It's about a guy, Baez goes ahead and sings as a guy like the original words, that is accused of murdering someone one cold stormy night. 'The slayer that ran looked a lot like me', the verse goes.
The main character in it cannot defend himself even though he has an alibi. Nobly he remains silent because his one alibi was that he was in the arms of his best friend's wife. The woman involved, who now wears a long, black veil as she visits his grave, doesn't speak up either and the guy hangs.
But the song is so effective and you leave it as a don't try this at home. So many have sung this song. Lefty, Joan, Johnny Cash, even Bob Dylan's band. You get so caught up in it, even in this day when people are openly in the arms of their best friend's wife.
Maybe missing such nobility, however misplaced, even over a dastardly act. Maybe just a beautiful love song, but the song is haunting and you get so caught up in it. Vulnerable, human love, however misplaced, all the more vulnerable and human.
If they ever had a sequel though. You know that somewhere she told and her husband shot her dead anyway or something not noble. That's why a sequel was never written perhaps.
posted by CottonSr @ 6:38 PM
1 Comments:
At 8:45 AM,
Sara said…
Now I think that the song is an illusion of nobility. He's noble enough to hang for a crime he didn't commit because he was messing around with a married woman...and not just ANY married woman. They were both sorry, but not for what they did, they were sorry for what transpired. That's not unlike what we see alot of today. People repent when caught, but without being found out, would probably have continued in their shenanigans (whatever that might be).
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