Clifton Hicks

"No More the Moon Shines on Lorena" Performance

Added 2023-07-07 13:30:01 +0000 UTC

Louis Staab composed "No More the Moon Shines on Lorena" in 1889 (and is sometimes confused with Henry Webster's wildly popular "Lorena" published in 1856). The Smyth County Ramblers recorded it in 1928 under the title, "Way Down in Alabama," and the Carter Family released it in 1930 using the original title. In recent years, Jerron Paxton of New York has re-introduced the song among traditional banjoists.

My instrument is a 2000s Terry Bell "Boucher" minstrel #banjo tuned d♯G♯D♯G♯A♯ (gCGCD dropped four frets).

Way down on the old plantation
Where Master kept me as a slave,
He owned a yellow girl he called
Lorena Who I courted where the wild bananas wave.

CHORUS
No more the moon shines on Lorena
As we'd sit and watch the raccoons climb the corn,
And the possums playing in the wild bananas
With the old owl a'hooting like a horn.

Several years there we courted
We were as happy as one,
Hard work we done for old Master
And the happiness of life had just begun.

One day I went to see Lorena
I thought she'd meet me at the gate,
But they took her away to old Virginia
And left me here to mourn for her fate.

Many long years I hoped to see her
Thoughts of her was ever in my head,
Til one day Master read to me a letter
Telling me Lorena she was dead.