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Topic: He Killed The Knoxville Girl - Why? |
Walter Stettner
From:
Vienna, Austria
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 12:57 am |
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Just listened to the words - these old traditionals are really bloody and cruel... 
Why did he do it? Drugs, she cheated him...or just for fun? Was he a serial killer (maybe he also killed "Pretty Polly" and some gitls in other songs?)
I met a little girl in Knoxville a town we all know well
And every Sunday evening out in her home I'd dwell
We went to take an evening walk about a mile from town
I picked a stick up off the ground and knocked that fair girl down
She fell down on her bended knees for mercy she did cry
Oh Willy dear don't kill me here I'm not prepared to die
She never spoke another word I only beat her more
Until the ground around me within her blood did flow
I took her by her golden curles I dragged her round and round
Then threw her into the river that flows through Knoxville town
Go there go there you Knoxville girl with dark and rolling eyes
Go there go there you Knoxville girl you'll never be my wife
I rolled and tumbled the whole night through my dreams were living hell
And then they came from Knoxville and carried me to jail
I'm here to waste my life away and time is passing slow
Because I killed that Knoxville girl the girl I loved so
Kind Regards, Walter
_________________
www.lloydgreentribute.com |
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Henry Nagle
From:
Santa Rosa, California
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 1:02 am
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| Isn't it: "Dark and roving eyes" ? |
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Henry Nagle
From:
Santa Rosa, California
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 1:02 am
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| Or, perhaps: "Roaming" |
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Henry Nagle
From:
Santa Rosa, California
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 1:03 am
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Anyhow, I think it's a cheating song... with an innovative new twist!  |
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Walter Stettner
From:
Vienna, Austria
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 1:28 am
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Yes, it is "roving", copied the lyrics from the web. Maybe he killed her because she was looking at him with those "rolling eyes" and he felt threatened...
Kind Regards, Walter
_________________
www.lloydgreentribute.com |
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 2:52 am
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Well it was obviously because she looked at somebody else.
Tolerance for that kind of thing was much less here in earlier times.
Usually like In "Banks of Ohio" it was refusal to marry.
Times change.
EJL |
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Archie Nicol R.I.P.
From:
Ayrshire, Scotland
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Larry Miller
From:
Dothan AL,USA
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 5:40 am
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| ...she burned the biscuits? |
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Andy Greatrix
From:
Edmonton Alberta
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 6:11 am
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It sounds like he was a bi-polared psychopath with low self esteem and erectile disfunction.
And oh yes, he was ugly. Then if you add cheap whiskey and bad diet, the poor girl never stood a chance! |
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Tommy Minniear
From:
Logansport, Indiana
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 8:00 am
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| I heard Eddie Stubbs play this on WSM this past week. The version he played was by the Louvin Brothers and he stated that it was their most requested song. Eddie said on occassion the Louvin's would be requested to do this song twice a night. My thought upon hearing him say that was that he was referring to Opry performances - 1st and then possibly again on the 2nd show. Either way the story line of this song is too vague for my taste (I really dislike scratching my head when a song is over - thinking: Now why did that happen?), although Ira & Charlie sang it beautifully. |
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Dave Harmonson
From:
Seattle, Wa
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 8:42 am
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| I agree that it's the dark and roving eye that turned him homicidal. At least he didn't get away with it. Sounds like his dear mother turned him in. Charlie Louvin was up here in Seattle a few months back and said he knew some other songs that made Knoxville Girl sound like a Sunday School song. |
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Michael Johnstone
From:
Sylmar,Ca. USA
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 9:19 am
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| In his book "Country - the Twisted Roots of Rock & Roll" author Nick Tosches traces this lyrical theme from hillbilly back to minstrelsy - then farther back to 17th century English sea chanties then finally step by step all the way back to Greek mythology.There's also a great chapter on Jerry Lee Lewis and lots of other tasty stuff.It'll never make Oprah's top ten book list but check it out - it's a fascinating read. |
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 12:14 pm
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Replied first after a long day/night.load out/in..
Yeah. Hillbilly Murder..
I can't help remember how Eminem 8 Mile phenom, where he "poisons his mom", and other wretched "Sid Vicious" themes seemed to be heralded as something new.
Banks of the Ohio, where her mom wouldn't provide "consent", and lest we forget, the 60s left wing Folk Anthem "Tom Dooley".
Anybody ever get to investigating My Darling Clementine?
"Hit her foot against a splinter, fell into the foaming brine." How did he know?
And the most telling verse:
"How I missed her! How I missed her,
How I missed my Clementine,
But I kissed her little sister,
I forgot my Clementine." Probably she had smaller feet. "Light she was, and like a fairy, and her shoes were Number Nine." Some heavy suspicion....
Well, it seems they, like the Beatles, seemed to come here from the good old UK.
I imagine from other civilizations previous, and on down to the Land East of Nod where "Cain knew his wife", (and probably killed her...)
Reminds me of a young man I worked with a few years ago.
I thought he was a little touchy about his ethnicity, but never said much. Everything that happened to him was the result of discriminatin'. Well years passed and I talked to one of my old co-workers. Seems Robert hacked his girlfriend to bits with a butcher knife. I asked why. It was on account of she stole his CD player out of his Olds.. Probably a real cool one.
Farther back a geeky little guy, Marlowe Buchannan, that used to get teased some in Jr High and high school went to college in Eugene in the 70s, and was set up for some embarrasing joke in the girls dorm. Well, he didn't like it and killed a couple of them with a butcher knife.. Gotta be a song there..
I can't get any Google action on it, but 15 years later he was working as a waiter in a high end crawfish bar in Portland.. His folks were rich..
Somehow I think the art of saving some of these horrific occurrences to song has been lost.
I kind of liked the Eminem thing, and I wondered why, until I got to thinking that it was part of a long tradition of folk music.
Can't sey that I miss a lot of it, or spend time writing dirges about Natalie Holloway. (Maybe something in Reggae..)
Maybe some parts of our culture are better off lost...
EJL |
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Stephanie Carta
From:
Florida, USA
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 1:22 pm
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I have on tape Charlie Louvin telling the story... it would have been in 1994 playing with the Osborne Brothers at a festival. Basically.. the Knoxville Girl wouldn't perform a sex act. Charlie said the girl said "you want me to do what to what?"
_________________
http://www.myspace.com/thedesertroseband |
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Eric West
From:
Portland, Oregon, USA, R.I.P.
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 1:28 pm
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Yet another reason as old as civilization...
EJL |
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Orville Johnson
From:
Seattle, Washington, USA
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Posted 19 Jan 2008 5:03 pm
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This is a story I ran across about a fellow who had Bill Monroe's son James on the phone and inquired about this subject...
Jim Moss: So, ah.. James… can you ask your father something for me?
James Monroe: What is it?
Jim Moss: Well, it is about the song Foot Prints In The Snow….
James Monroe: The boy on the phone wants to ask you something about Foot Prints In The Snow.
Bill Monroe: What does he want?
Jim Moss: Ask him… (testing the waters) if in the song it is snowing?
James Monroe: The boy wants to know if it is snowing in the song..
Bill Monroe: Yes, it is snowing..
James Monroe: Yeah, it’s snowing
Jim Moss: I thought so.. (that worked all right)
Jim Moss: OK, ask him, does the girl gets lost out in the forest?
James Monroe: The boy from California wants to know if the girl gets lost out in the forest?
Bill Monroe: Tell him yes the girl is lost. (it sounds like Bill is reading or doing something else)
James Monroe: Yes the girl is lost.
Jim Moss: (also, now I am the boy from California!!, I wonder what the meaning of that is?)
Jim Moss: OK, ask him if she dies in the snow.. When he finds her is she dead?
James Monroe: The boy wants to know if she dies in the snow?
Bill Monroe: ( pause.. ) Yes she dies out in the snow.
James Monroe: She dies in the snow.
Jim Moss: Well, now here is one last question, James: Why is it that he blesses that happy day when Nellie lost her way only to die in the snow? Why is he happy that she is dead?
James Monroe: The boy wants to know why is you are happy that she is dead?
Bill Monroe: (…real long pause….)
Bill Monroe: Those old songs… Who knows what they mean!
James Monroe: We have work to do here, is there anything else I can do for you? |
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David Doggett
From:
Bawl'mer, MD (formerly of MS, Nawluns, Gnashville, Knocksville, Lost Angeles, Bahsten. and Philly)
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Posted 20 Jan 2008 2:05 pm
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| Orville Johnson wrote: |
| Those old songs… Who knows what they mean! |
I think that's the answer. If you follow them back through all the different versions, it's like that "pass-it-along" game kids play. People forget or misunderstand the previous version and make up something that sounds similar, and maybe preserves the meter, alliteration or rhyme, but doesn't really have the same meaning. Plus, sometimes the real truth (caught her back of the barn with a traveling salesman) gets censored for mixed company. Isn't it odd that the sexual parts get censored, but the bloody violence doesn't? Horrible as these old murder ballads are, it would be a mistake to think the stories they tell are just part of the distant past. Men murdering women for rejection or cheating is a fairly common news story everywhere I have lived, North, South, West Coast, East Coast. And it's not all hillbillies and trash doin' the killin'. Around here lately it has been an assortment of politicians, rich businessmen, college professors, and even a Rabbi. You know, the usual rabble.  |
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Dave Van Allen
From:
Doylestown, PA , US , Earth
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Posted 21 Jan 2008 5:45 am
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| Stephanie Carta wrote: |
. Basically.. the Knoxville Girl wouldn't perform a sex act. Charlie said the girl said "you want me to do what to what?"
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I thinkhis request was:
"Go Down, go down, you Knoxville Girl"  |
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Ray Minich
From:
Bradford, Pa. Frozen Tundra
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Posted 21 Jan 2008 8:48 am
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The mind of the psychopath is unkown and mostly unknowable territory to the normal person.
Charlie Manson could probably answer this question for hours....... |
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Mike Perlowin
From:
Los Angeles CA
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Charles Davidson
From:
Phenix City Alabama, USA
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Posted 21 Jan 2008 2:13 pm
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Maybe that old gal never learned to cook grits and streak-a-lean,what other reason would a country boy need?DYKBC.
_________________
Hard headed, opinionated old geezer. BAMA CHARLIE. GOD BLESS AMERICA. ANIMAL RIGHTS ACTIVIST. SUPPORT LIVE MUSIC ! |
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Arty Passes
From:
Austin, TX
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Posted 25 Jan 2008 7:29 am
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| I always think of this song when I hear all the whining about violent lyrics in rock and rap........you think this song inspired others to commit violence? Me neither. |
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Cody Campbell
From:
Nashville, Tennessee
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Posted 25 Jan 2008 10:03 am
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BY FAR, my all-time favorite murder ballad is Tim O'Brien's cut of "Down in the Willow Garden". It's a hauntingly beatiful vocal duet. It's from an album called "The Crossing". The overall theme of the album is Tim's Irish roots. Some of the instrumentals are very irish-flavored, but most of the album is just good acoustic music. If you like Tim O'Brien AT ALL, get this album. It's incredible. And definitely get it if you like irish music at all. (And for you banjo haters, there's only a couple tracks with banjo. Clawhammer style).
"Down in the willow garden" is a highlight of the album . Such a beautiful, sad song. By the end, you don't feel sad for the girl so much, but for the killer's father. His father had put him up to committing the murder, assuring him he could make bail. But the father ends up having to watch his son hang.
[Edited to add: And on the track, Jerry Douglas plays what the liner notes call "hawaiian guitar". (But it sounds just like a lower-pitched dobro) Not Hawaiian sounding at all]. |
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