The Lonesome Scenes of Winter
It’s February and I am sighing a lot. Luckily, I have a bunch of pals that live by the mantra, “There’s no bad weather, just bad clothes,” so we have been hiking a lot. This means I have heard myself say, “DAG, it’s bleak as hell out here,” many, many times.
Last Saturday I was walking with two artists pals, and I asked them about it. “Since ya’ll have the superpower of vision of recognizing tiny shade differences by name and all the warms and cools that contribute to a bleak-ass landscape, how do you feel about all this grey and tan?”
My friend Rachel, whose Nordic palette is moody greys & the colors of a Pacific Northwest seascape, said she loves it. She pointed out some bleak highlights on the landscape, reminding us about the many washed out looking living things that rest in the dark soil until it’s time for their springtime glow-up.
I said, for me, a bleak landscape is kind of like a mood ring. If I’m feeling blue, I read it as confirmation that all the marrow has been sucked from life and my future is a bone-colored path into a horizonless future (hahah, I’m exaggerating, kind of). If I’m feeling good, a bleak landscape is like standing in front of a stack of amps at a doom metal show--100% unapologetic toughness with no apologies. The almost-comic bleakness is inspiring.
One of my favorite ballads ever about this very thing, is Addie Graham’s version of “Lonesome Scenes of Winter,” from Been A Long Time Traveling in the June Appal’s Anthology of Appalachian Music Vol. 1: The Ballad Tradition.
I wouldn’t normally turn to a record with multiple murder ballads and a tune about the death of children for a pick-me-up, but Graham’s version of “Lonesome Scenes” gets you right up under the rib cage. You know, that spot in your spirit that knows that many things in this life are just brutal, must be faced head-on, and accepted for what they are in all their ugliness. I will not insult you with a list of flip examples, but I don’t need to. This is, unfortunately, one universal lesson of human existence.
When I first came out about loving folk music, I was 18 years old and depressed. Punk was the main thing (music, lifestyle, social event) where I lived, so this felt risky. Punk got me interested in vinyl. Vinyl got me interested in folk music. In my countless hours of digging at the thrift store, I picked up a couple of folk revival records that piqued my interest. Some of these artists reference Harry Smith’s Anthology of American Folk Music, and after many trips to my local library, well, the rest is history. I went through a two year period of not listening to anything that didn’t have a chicken in the background.
I bought an old autoharp and started learning tunes. I didn’t know about old-time or that young people actually played this music. There was one musician in my area who owned a folk music store in the 70s, and he taught me some basic autoharp repair. My friends’ hardcore bands let me open for them with “L&N Railroad,” and “The Wagonneer’s Lad” (ah, the pure love in local posi punk scenes).
When I sang these ballads, I was not alone. I did not feel depressed (even though most of the songs were depressing). I was taking a turn bearing witness to human suffering.
By the miracle of archivists and libraries etc., I got to pray the same song-prayers that countless other people before me sang when they experienced sadness, depression, despair, & joy. These were songs that mountain women sang as they hung laundry (in warm and cold weather). These Appalachian tunes that I hummed while washing dishes during this difficult time, were hummed by many before me during their difficult times, all the way back to their countries of origin.
What happens to a melody the longer it’s sung? Does it grow spiritual power with every voice?
What I am saying is, bleak sad songs have been healing to me. Graham’s version of “Lonesome Scenes of Winter,” a song about loneliness, unrequited love, threat of poverty, etc. bear witness to the raw toughness of these experiences. The narrative does not stop in the lonesome scene of winter. It doesn’t even stop in the unrequited love. The song continues indefinitely as the slighted lover moves on certain that, though this woman doesn’t love him, “another will.”
The personal experience encapsulated in Appalachian ballads helped me feel connection in a bleak emotional landscape. Performing the deep sadness of others helped normalize my own.
A bleak landscape is a visual representation of this, too, I guess. Yep, things are not lush and green right now. Signs of death are everywhere. There’s no way around it. But the days just keep on coming. And every day (after the solstice), there is a little more light. And eventually, with more light, the life dormant under the surface will emerge again.