Appalachia II - The British Ballads

Project: Appalachia II - The British Ballads

My song of choice for the week was "Comin' Thro' the Rye" by Julie London. This song felt very sensual and very much about the physicality and movement of two people. It is odd knowing that this song started off as a tradition child's song by Robert Burns, a Scottish author. The intensity of this song is overwhelming however when looking beyond that, at its most bare, it is about relationships between people. It is about finding that other person to share experiences with. In this piece the woman's body position and the hand on her back is meant to represent a captured moment in time of a developing relationship.

In "Cecil Sharp in America" he notes that the songs of the Appalachia were "traditional songs and ballads which their English and Scottish ancestors had brought out with them at the time of their emigration." Due to the geography of the mountains and social pressure, Appalachians were isolated those songs were preserved for a couple hundreds of years. These songs deal with the wonders and troubles of love, something universal. Thus, transcending those Ballads across oceans and managing to continue to resonate with people. There American counterparts are however much more specific to the concerns of the Appalachians, thus localizing the problems that were sung.