The Willow Tree: A Song History

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Aubrey Atwater published her songbook Song By Song, which teaches mountain dulcimer alongside other instruments, in 2001.[1] Its table of contents lists "The Willow Tree" among the early pieces in the book's mountain dulcimer section.[2] In a workshop description Atwater calls the piece "the Shaker hymn, The Willow Tree," and uses it in DAD tuning to show how chords placed in different positions can bring out a melody.[3]

Etching of a large willow tree beside a stream

Samuel Palmer, The Willow, etching, 1850. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Public domain (CC0). Shown for the title.

Composer Gwyneth Walker named one movement of her Three Shaker Songs for string orchestra (2024) "The Willow Tree" after the words of a Shaker song about bowing down humbly like a willow.[4] The Quaker resource site Inward Light attributes "I Will Bow and Be Simple," a Shaker song whose words also call up a willow, to the North Family of the Shaker community at New Lebanon, New York, in 1847.[5] The folklorist Daniel W. Patterson writes of yet another willow song, "Who Will Bow and Bend Like the Willow," a gift song that, by his account, came to the Canterbury community in 1847 by way of the spirit Laughing John.[6] The sources consulted here do not establish which Shaker song, if any of these, Atwater arranges, though her "Shaker hymn" label and the shared title suggest a connection with Walker's source.[3][4]

Several unrelated pieces share the title.[7][8] The Traditional Tune Archive explains that the Cape Breton fiddler Howie MacDonald, recording a reel whose name he did not have, named it "Willow Tree" for a nearby gas station.[7] The tune is an Irish reel usually known as "Over the Moor to Maggie."[7] "Willow Tree" is also a traditional song (Roud 18831), one of many variants of the "Died for Love" theme, and the notes gathered by Mainly Norfolk differ on how many versions Roud's index holds: fifteen, five of them North American, in one count, and fourteen and four in another.[8]

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Sources

  1. Atwater~Donnelly: "Atwater~Donnelly" (about the duo).
  2. Atwater~Donnelly: "Song By Song, Volume I: Table of Contents" (PDF).
  3. Atwater~Donnelly: "Workshops".
  4. Gwyneth Walker: "Three Shaker Songs for String Orchestra (2024)".
  5. Inward Light: "I Will Bow & Be Simple".
  6. Folkstreams: "Notes on Songs in the Film, Shakers" (Daniel W. Patterson).
  7. Traditional Tune Archive: "Willow Tree (4) (The)".
  8. Mainly Norfolk: "Willow Tree".