THE MUSIC - Elizabeth Cotton
(Freight Train/Here Old Rattler)
Elizabeth Cotton is an African American guitarist and folk singer, all the song that she wrote and sang, she used guitar to be the main music equipment. Her songs, it's not complicated song that use many music equipments but use just only one guitar when singing, easy to listening, can feel the sense of country song but her accent is not American maybe be African accent.
Freight Train
Written by Elizabeth Cotton
Chorus:Freight train, freight train, going so fast
Freight train, freight train, going so fast
Please don't tell what train I'm on
So they won't know where I've gone
When I am dead and in my grave
No more good times here I'll crave
Place the stones at my head and feet
And tell them all that I'm gone to sleep
When I die, lord, bury me deep
Way down on old Chestnut Street
So I can hear old Number Nine
As she comes rolling by
I think this song lyric talk about a women is going to somewhere by train for leave or run away from saddness. In the song the woman talk nonsense to attention demand on someone by picking up the situation on train to be the main s tory. It shows that American people in the past or in that period used train to be the transportation for traveling or going out of town from one town to another town.
posted by Butterfly @ 6:59 AM
3 comments
3 Comments:
Give us the lyrics to one of her songs. I can see you read and summarized which is good. Let us see the lyrics and then make some comments on those lyrics and what they mean to you.
Blues is the key to understanding all of American music. Get into the blues and you will get into the culture of America
Butterfly,
I am very sorry I have not commented on your song. I CAN NOT BEGIN TO TELL YOU HOW MUCH I APPRECIATE YOU CHOOSING THAT SONG. I hoped someone would It is an absolutely, one of the greatest songs written. But, you will be surprised about the next part.
Elisabeth Cotton set a new standard on playing the guitar, when she wrote that song and performed it. Her finger style blew every one away. I am going to post this now, and will get back with you.
I cannot express myself, to you, how important this one song is to American Music. I can play it a little while like she did, but my fingers and wrists get tired.
Papa Dale
FREIGHT TRAIN
(Libba Cotten - written about 1905)
Chas McDevitt & Nancy Whiskey - 1957
Rusty Draper - 1957
Roy Acuff - 1965
Jim & Jesse - 1971
Also recorded by:
Pete Seeger; Elizabeth Cotten; The Overlanders; Peter & Gordon;
Dick & Dee Dee; Chet Atkins; Esther & Abi Ofarim; Dave Dudley;
Peter, Paul & Mary; Joan Baez; Mac Wiseman; Peter Morse;
New Lost City Ramblers.
RECORDING INFO: Bachman, Johnny. Room at the Top, JHU, LP (197?), cut#A.07; Baez, Joan. Very Early Joan, Vanguard VSD 79446/7, LP (1982), cut#B.02; Blake, Norman; and Red Rector. Norman Blake and Red Rector, County 755, LP (1976), cut# 10; Bluestein, Evo. Deep Shady Grove, Swallow 2002, LP (197?), cut# 13; Cotten, Elizabeth. Folksongs and Instrumentals with Guitar, Folkways FG 3526, LP (1958), cut# 2; Cotten, Elizabeth. When I'm Gone. Elizabeth Cotton, Vol. 3, Folkways FA 3537, LP (1979), cut#B.01; Cotten, Elizabeth. 20th Aniversery Concert, Flying Fish FF 090, LP (1986), cut#A.04; Dick & Dee Dee. Turn Around, Warner Bros W 1538, LP (196?), cut#A.02; Emerson and Waldron. New Shades of Grass, Rebel SLP 1485, LP (197?), cut# 4 (Fast Freight); Hazell, Patrick; Band. After Hours, Blue Rhythm 04LP, LP (1981), cut#A.01; Morse, Peter. Goin' Down to Town, Philips PHM 200-059, LP (196?), cut#A.06; New Lost City Ramblers. Stanley, Peter. At the Sidekick, Talkeetna 25003, CD (1999), cut# 6.
NOTES: Key of C; One Part. The singing and playing of Elizabeth Cotten, from Chapel Hill, North Carolina is well-known to anyone interested in traditional guitar styles. Libba had very individual sound; perhaps so because she played the guitar left-handed, with a right-handed guitar held upside down. “Freight Train” is Libba Cotten’s most well known song. She composed it when she was about twelve years old, wondering where the train that ran past her farm might be headed and what the people there might be like. As an adult, Libba worked as a domestic and raised her own family, all the while keeping at her music. It wasn't until she retired at age sixty-five did Libba hit the road as a full time touring musician. Considered to be an authentic Piedmont region artist, Cotten enjoyed a thirty year career of performances and recordings.
Although this is a bluegrass song, it is frequently played as a guitar instrumental. Related to: Boat's Up the River.
Well Ms BF, I cannot find a site where the song is played. Listen to your CD and hone in on how she is playing the guitar.
Great choice and good write up. Because I am a musician, I know things about songs that most people don't.
In fact, one of my students said, "Dale studies music, and we are not capable of doing that."
PAPA DALE
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