East Virginia | Performance
Added 2018-12-08 00:04:59 +0000 UTCfDGCD, relative (aka "East Virginia" or "F" tuning.)
This early banjo song is an oral history record of the mass migration of west African and Scots-Irish people from the Chesapeake Bay region into the frontiers of Carolina and Kentucky. I learned it from George R. Gibson of Knott County, Kentucky who learned it from neighbors during the 1950s. He plays this a couple of ways and both are fairly different from the approach I've used here. He also sings several unusual verses, some of which are included in my lyrics below:
I am from old east Virginia
North Carolina I did go,
There I met a fine young woman
Though her name I did not know.
Her hair was black and curly
Her cheeks were a chestnut red,
On her breast she wore white linen
There I long to lay my head.
I'd rather be in some dark hollow
Where the sun don't never shine,
Than to see you with some other
And to know you'd never be mine.
But I must leave old North Carolina
I must leave you all alone,
I'm going across that Blue Ridge mountain
East Kentucky will be my home.
When I was lost out on the mountain
The wild dove mourning in the air,
I missed that gal from North Carolina
With dark brown eyes and coal black hair.
When I'm sleeping I dream about her
When I'm awake I see no rest,
Every moment seems like an hour
And many a tear I've shed o'r her.
I've kept each of your letters
I hold them closely to my heart,
But this ring that you gave me darling
From my hand shall never part.
Captain Captain I am dying
Won't you take these words for me,
Take them back to east Virginia
Tell my darling she is free.
Comments
Thank you for sharing the history of the song East Virginia. I have always liked the song and now I like it more.
DEBORAH K BOZEK
2018-12-09 17:21:47 +0000 UTCI refer to it that way too. Down the rabbit hole.
Micheál Mac Labhrás
2018-12-09 00:18:59 +0000 UTCThis is one of the songs that pushed me down the rabbit-hole of Banjo....Thank you; I hope a lesson is coming soon. Be well!
Justin Hoffmann
2018-12-08 10:57:13 +0000 UTC
