Bury Me Beneath The Willow: A Song History

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"Bury Me Beneath the Willow" is an anonymous American song of heartbreak: a lover deserted just before the wedding asks to be buried under a willow, hoping the one who left will someday think back with regret.[1] The Traditional Ballad Index lists it as Roud 410, notes that it turns up across Appalachia, the Southeast, the South, the Midwest and the Southwest under names such as "The Weeping Willow" and "Under the Willow Tree," and dates its earliest known text to 1909, among material in H. M. Belden's collection for the Missouri Folk-Lore Society.[1] Collectors kept finding it for decades afterward: it appears in Vance Randolph's Ozark collection and the Frank C. Brown collection from North Carolina, and in 1957 John Quincy Wolf Jr. recorded Almeda Riddle singing it in Miller, Arkansas.[1][2] One writer has linked a line in the Carter Family's version to Psalm 137, but the Ballad Index editor notes that most versions lack it and regards it as a borrowing that drifted in rather than the song's root.[1]

Silk mourning embroidery of a weeping willow arching over an urn on a plinth, with a young woman weeping beside it

Mourning picture, silk embroidery on silk, Albany, New York, about 1830. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0).

The song was already on records before the Carter Family took it up. Henry Whitter recorded "The Weeping Willow Tree" for OKeh in 1923, and Kelly Harrell (Victor, 1925) and Burnett & Rutherford (Columbia, recorded 1926) followed.[3][1] On August 1, 1927, at Ralph Peer's sessions in Bristol, Tennessee, A. P., Sara and Maybelle Carter recorded it as "Bury Me Under the Weeping Willow," a vocal trio backed by Sara's autoharp and Maybelle's guitar; the second take was issued on Victor 21074.[4] According to Mark Zwonitzer and Charles Hirschberg, as cited by the Ballad Index, it was the first song the trio sang for Peer, and Encyclopedia Virginia treats the Bristol sessions as a turning point for country music and the beginning of the family's recording career.[1][5] The Carters recorded it again for Decca in 1936, and later versions came from the Delmore Brothers (Bluebird, 1938) and Red Foley with the Andrews Sisters (Decca, 1947).[1]

It remains widely played in bluegrass circles: the Idaho Bluegrass Association calls it "one of the most common of bluegrass standards" and offers tabs and tips for beginners on it, pointing out that its chord changes are shared by many other bluegrass favorites.[6]

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Sources

  1. The Traditional Ballad Index: "Bury Me Beneath the Willow".
  2. Lyon College, John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection: "Bury Me Beneath the Willow (The Weeping Willow)".
  3. Smithsonian National Museum of American History: "Rain Crow Bill Blues; The Weeping Willow Tree".
  4. Discography of American Historical Recordings: "Victor matrix BVE-39750. Bury me under the weeping willow / Carter Family".
  5. Encyclopedia Virginia: "A. P. Carter (1891–1960)".
  6. Idaho Bluegrass Association: "Bury Me Beneath The Willow info".