Saturday, August 17, 2013

A Whimsical Woody Waltz: Guthrie &"Those Brown Eyes"

"Woody saw the ravages of the Dust Bowl and the Depression firsthand...and he wrote tough yet lyrical stories about the men and women who struggled to survive, enduring the indignity of living life at the bone, with nothing to eat and no place to sleep. He traveled from town to town, hitchhiking and stealing rides in railroad boxcars, singing his songs for spare change or a ham sandwich...his eye was clear, unclouded, and unobstructed by sentimentality."
 - Bill Moyers

Moyers is writing here primarily about "This Land Is Your Land," and he does a fine job in a few sentences of summarizing what public memory celebrates about Woody Guthrie - the populism, the passion, and the politics, for the most part. Yet I would take minor exception to his final sentence, since Guthrie was indeed possessed of a strong sentimental streak, especially for children, and if that sentimentality never quite clouded his vision, it did remain a significant element in much of his songwriting. Throughout his career but especially toward its premature end, as his own brood of youngsters was expanding and growing, he wrote more and more children's songs. In fact, 25 years after Woody's 1967 death, a librarian at Sarah Lawrence College discovered a manuscript of such tunes written in Guthrie's hand, some of which were annotated as co-composed by his wife Marjorie. Guthrie sons Arlo and Joady and daughter Nora reconstructed the melodies both from memory and from some surviving tapes and with their own children recorded and released 20 Grow Big Songs in 1992. All told, Guthrie wrote several score children's songs that we know of, most of which have the virtue, according to Allmusic's Bob Hinkle, of "an unusually strong identification with actually being a child, in all its simplicity and charm..." I would guess that most folk and roots music fans have at least heard this one:



This is the perfectly charming Woody Guthrie, the memory of which has been largely obscured by his more familiar image as a firebrand and activist as articulated by Moyers above.

Another facet of Guthrie's writing and performing that is less remembered today than it should be was his romantic side, both in his selection of traditional and popular songs to record, like "Red River Valley" and "Who's Gonna Shoe Your Pretty Little Foot?," and in songs that he wrote or significantly re-arranged, like "Those Brown Eyes." This last one is one of those really delightful folk mysteries as to its origin. The version usually sung today has a copyright assigned to "Guthrie/Arkin/Carey/Darling," the last three of course being The Tarriers, who re-arranged Woody's version slightly when they recorded it in the late 1950s. Guthrie added a bit more instrumentation than he normally employed in this mid 1940s recording -



- and The Tarriers followed his general outline for their rendition a decade or so later:



Interestingly, the Guthrie recording cuts the story off at the point where the singer sees the beloved with another man, whereas The Tarriers include the older version - that the fellow was her brother and not a rival for her romantic affections.

Jim and Jesse McReynolds also gave the song a respectful reading in the best tradition of classic American country music:.

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Guthrie's copyright tends to underscore the general supposition that WG wrote "Those Brown Eyes," especially since Guthrie was usually direct and upfront about songs that he thought were traditional when he recorded them. Yet an earlier version of the number, nearly identical in the lyric though somewhat different in the melody, had been recorded as "Those Dark Eyes" in 1929 by Jack Copeland Mathis, who released records at different times under the names of Blind Jack, Jack Mathis and Cowboy Jack. According to his daughter, Mathis was born in Kentucky but spent most of his life in Texas, recording, performing, and hosting a popular radio show. However, the year before Mathis's record, a certain Fay and the JayWalkers waxed yet another version of "Those Dark Eyes," again with the same basic story and lyrics but again with a different tune. Fay and the JayWalkers may have a copyright as well - evidence of it seems lost - but it appears as if even they were basing the number on a now-forgotten nineteenth century pop song.

What lends additional weight to that last possibility are several aspects of "Those Brown (or Dark) Eyes" that do not conform to the normal and expected parameters of most traditional American folk tunes. First, the song is written in a 3/4 waltz-like tempo, which while not at all unheard of in the country's folk catalog ("I Never Will Marry," "Streets Of Laredo," and the "Pretty Little Foot" mentioned above, to name three) is far, far less common than straightforward 4/4 time signatures. Further, the mistaken identity/lost love nature of the lyric sounds rather more like a cheesy 1800s melodrama or a Victorian morality tale than it does an Anglo-American or Scotch-Irish traditional ballad.

In any case, the song's popularity has persisted for decades, interestingly most especially in Ireland, where half a dozen major singing stars have recorded versions of the song, notably Johnny McEvoy, and rather more melodramatically here bySean O'Farrell:



The Kingston Trio picked up the song from The Tarriers, whose copyright they acknowledged in their 1963 rendition on the album Sunny Side:



This version is noteworthy only for the dependably excellent lead vocal by Bob Shane and the addition to the instrumentation of a fine supporting guitar line by session musician John Staubard.

For something with a more interestingly contemporary take on the tune, California's great Dave Alvin goes back to the 1929 Mathis lyrics, which echo an 1865 "Those Dark Eyes" published version attributed only to "Armand." Mathis seems to borrow some of the colorful descriptions of the first two verses from that one, and Alvin gives the tune a full-on modern country/roots treatment:



Alvin included this one on his 2000 album Public Domain: Songs From The Wild Land, which features Alvin's arrangements of traditional songs. While Jack Copeland Mathis's daughter does not seem to be interested in enforcing any copyright claims, I wonder idly whether or not some descendant of Fay and the JayWalkers might not be knocking on Dave Alvin's door at some point.

"Those Brown Eyes" is a slight if pleasant song, and I have always wondered at its durability since it keeps popping up somewhere or other, decade after decade. The very nearly mawkish sentimentality of the lyric's idea - the departed and possibly misunderstood lover looking down from heaven on her now-regretful suitor - and the fact that this appealed enough to the otherwise generally tough-minded Woody Guthrie that he chose to record it is certainly indicative of the fact that there was more to WG than anthems and angry protests. A definite streak of sentimentality manifests itself in Woody's recording, so - QED, as we used to say in geometry class.

7 comments:

Jaan said...

Thanks for the interesting post. I learned this song from Dave Alvin's recording and was not familiar with all the versions in 3/4 time. The 1865 copyright was claimed by New Orleans music publisher A.E (Armand Edward) Blackmar aka "Armand." The published sheet music is available online from the Lester S. Levy collection at Johns Hopkins. Twentieth century versions are all appear to be related to it. The earliest recording I have found is Columbia 15714D "Dark Eyes" by Roy Harvey & Posey Rorer. Although the lyrics are changed quite a bit and the melody simplified , Harvey's version is surprisingly close to Armand's. Both are in 4/4, with the same chord progression. Another YouTube video that could be included here is the Carter Family's 1932 version, which they titled "I Never Loved But One" (also in 4/4.) It appears that the oldest versions of this song were all in 4/4. I don't have access to Jack Mathis' recording; I would love know what lyrics he sang, and get confirmation that he too did the song in 4/4.

Jaan

Jaan said...
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Jim Moran said...

Thank you so much for the added information, Jaan. As you see, I had trouble running down the full name of Armand. I did, however, see a facsimile of his original lyrics, which is why I speculated that the more vivid imagery in Alvin's first two verses seemed to have been derived from Armand Blackmar. As you can see from the videos posted here, the song for the most part survives today in that 3/4 time, and I haven;t been able to find a video or .mp3 recording of one of the older versions in 4/4.

The Carters (found them on YT thanks to your comment) are doing an adapted version of AEB, citing blue eyes - but the tune bears little resemblance to either this "Brown Eyes" of Mathis's "Dark Eyes." There is a prestty good discussion of it all at the Mudcat Cafe here:

http://mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=71196

ARB's 1865 lyrics are there, and the connection to Alvin (verses 2 and 3 there) is immediately apparent.

Again, thanks for the information and interest - I will integrate some of this into the article and put the Carters up as well. All comments here are welcome - this blog is really a series of essays about the songs, often with a dash of background thrown in, but with the rhetorical character of an essay the primary point.

regards,

Jim

Jaan said...

It's interesting to look at how the various lyrics have evolved. Death, rejected love and jealousy are prolific themes in folk music. The folk process often morphs a song from one of these themes to another - or some combination. The 1865 AEB lyrics have no hint of rejected love or jealousy. The song appears to be about death. (Her dark eyes should have opened, but did not. They are veiled.) The lyrics sung by Roy Harvey in 1927 express devotion and loss, but don't say what happened. Later versions have Dark Eyes leaving him. And later yet, a rival suitor appears. As is often the case, many versions combine these themes in ways that are not very coherent. The Tarriers appear to have worked very hard to reconcile all the versions -- and add a maudlin ironic twist that the jealousy was a tragic misunderstanding. And then Dave Alvin's reverts to a simple story of boy loves/loses girl and she marries another. It's interesting as you point out, Jim, that through all these plot twists much of Armand Blackmar's imagery has been retained to this day.

Mauro20 said...

Bud & Travis did their excellent rendition too. With chorus! On the Spotlight Lp, if I remember well.
Ciao
Maurizio from Italy

Mauro20 said...
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Jim Moran said...

Grazie, Mauitzio! I will look for a video of Bud and Travis and add it. I love them!