At this point it seemed that anyone you think might have been tempted to cover “Man of Constant Sorrow” has. Of course, you knew that after Judy Collins did it everyone would have to. What I think is strange is that it really wasn’t picked up by punk bands. (But just wait until tomorrow before correcting me!) The truth is that musically, punk and folk aren’t that far apart.

Which brings us to the version in O Brother, Where Art Thou? It was recorded by Dan Tyminski, Harley Allen, and Pat Enright, with Tyminski on lead vocals. But here Tyminski is with Alison Krauss and Union Station doing the song live:

In a sense, I think this version kind of destroys the song in the same way that Jean-François Paillard’s version destroyed Pachelbel’s Canon. It is so powerful that everyone will agree that it is the way that the song ought to be performed and people will stop trying to innovate. Of course, there will always be the iconoclasts who insist that Emry Arthur or Sarah Ogan Gunning had it right all along and the song will be plopped on the end of a disc. But to really please an audience, it’s going to have to have that three-part harmony and the prominent banjo. It will be just like that damned pizzicato counterpoint in “Pachelbel’s Canon.”

Moving on with our week of “Man of Constant Sorrow,” I thought we would visit Waylon Jennings. Yesterday, I wrote that he turned the song into “an easy listening monstrosity.” And that’s true. But I listened to it again, and I was right to add that it “is good in its way.” Part of the problem we have is that as time went on, the people singing became more removed from the subject of the song. Jennings was not a man of constant sorrow.

This song is off Jennings’ second solo album, Folk-Country. The album isn’t bad. It’s got that late-60s sound that I associate with people like Bobby Goldsboro. But it has nothing of what I love this song for:

During the folk revival of the early 1960s, many people did “Man of Constant Sorrow.” Both Joan Baez (pretty good) and Judy Collins (meh) did versions of Gunning’s. Peter, Paul and Mary turned it into a dirge. Waylon Jennings managed to turn it into an easy listening monstrosity, which is good in its way. And Rod Stewart did his thing to it in 1969, before “his thing” became harming otherwise good music. But the most interesting, because he really does mold the song to himself, is Bob Dylan:

Although Emry Arthur’s version of “Man of Constant Sorrow” sold well, it was not until The Stanley Brothers released their version in 1951 that it really became popular. Their version changes the song into much more of what we know today. Specifically, they turn it into a bluegrass song with that classic howling voice. It also adds a much more lively accompaniment with that relentless fiddle. Ralph Stanley just had his 88th birthday. His brother Carter died back in 1966 at the age of only 41.

Moving on with our week of “Man of Constant Sorrow,” we have a woman. Recently, I’ve been marveling at the fact that people — including a lot of feminists — get their ideas of the traditional place of women in society from the 1950s. But the truth was that when humans were hunters and gathers, there were women hunters and men gathers. It has been civilization itself that enforced gender roles.

Right about the time that Emry Arthur was giving up music, Sarah Ogan Gunning recorded the song with her own lyrics as “Girl of Constant Sorrow.” The lyrics focus on the poverty of the coal mining region that she was from. This a cappella version is probably from 1965, but it is doubtless much how she sang in in 1936. (Roscoe Holcomb did a similar version in 1961.) It’s haunting and beautiful:

A year and a half ago, I wrote, A Slightly Pissy History of “Man of Constant Sorrow.” It was not the first time I had done an article where I looked at a song or something similar to demonstrate how it evolved over time. But just like always, no one really noted the article, even though I loved it. I am convinced the problem is not the idea itself, but just that people aren’t interested in listening to the same song over and over at one sitting. So I’m going to expand a bit on that article over the next week with one song per day.

You probably know the song “Man of Constant Sorrow” from the excellent version of it (which I will get to) in the film O Brother, Where Art Thou? But it is a very old song, dating back to 1913 when Dick Burnett published it. And even that version may just be his version of an earlier version.

Unfortunately, we don’t have any version of the song until 1928 when Emry Arthur recorded it. This version could hardly be more simple and earnest. Arthur sings it with a plaintive tone but there is little of the lyrics in his voice. The accompaniment seems to be a guitar and banjo. The banjo is kind of playful and it pushes a kind of meta-narrative that this is just a song and no one involved has had any worse a life than everyone else in Kentucky. But the version has a sweetness that I love. Unfortunately, the Great Depression was not kind of Arthur’s music career, which was completely over as of 1935. It would have been interesting to hear how he did the song at that point.

I was freaking out as this week came to a conclusion, “I need another godless spiritual song?!” And then I found myself over at Target shopping for coffee and over the store speakers came, “Sometimes in our lives we all have pain…” Who better to be my savior than Bill Withers? But how could I have overlooked this song?! It is absolutely the perfect representation of the spirituality that I am thinking of.

According to Wikipedia, Withers wrote the song while in Los Angeles because he “found himself missing the strong community ethic of his hometown.” This song fits in rather well with the Sermon on the Mount. I think this is why most Christians don’t make a big deal out of the Sermon. They’ve been trained to think that Christianity is just a special pass into the joyous afterlife rather than the key to a joyous this life. I’m not saying that I’m right and they’re wrong. I don’t speak for their religion. But if that is all that Christianity is, it’s a pathetic religion.

Of course, the brilliance of the song is that it is ultimately practical. He explicitly says, “Lean on me because I know that someday I will need to lean on you.” It is also another part of spiritualism in that it is egalitarian and totally lacking in hubris. We are all together in this. Call me.

Continuing on with this week of spirituality without God, I’m afraid that I’ve only made it too clear that my idea of spirituality is intimately linked to community. What is perhaps interesting about this is that all religious movements are fundamentally about that — in the beginning. It is the brotherhood of humankind. This is, ultimately, all that the mystics have to teach us in a practical sense. But if there is one thing that established religions hate, it is mystics.

Today, we listen to Chet Powers do his song, “Get Together.” It is a call for solidarity. And it is a song that we need to hear, “Love is but the song we sing; fear’s the way we die.” It’s interesting that political leaders are so good with using fear as a weapon, but useless in wielding love. It’s probably because those who lust for power aren’t very much in touch with the idea of love.

When it comes to spirituality in the sense that I mean it, I could pick almost any song by Jacques Brel. That’s what I love about him: his songs are all about real people and their relationships. But the song that really sticks out to me is “Les Bourgeois” off the album of the same name. The singer tells the story of his friends and him mocking the older notaries, “The older they get, the stupider they become.” But in the last verse, the young men are now older — middle class, now notaries themselves, drinking in the bourgeois bar. And the new generation of young men mock them with the same refrain.

What’s interesting is that there is some wisdom gained — even if it is drowned by resentment. But the men are still who they always were. Jojo is still Voltaire in his mind; Pierre is still Casanova; and the narrator just as narcissistic as ever. There is a continuity of life — a cycle. But we only appreciate it as we look back. If we lived to be 500, we would look back wryly at the silliness of ourselves in our 90s. We never arrive at enlightenment. We seek it. Maybe we even move toward it. But enlightenment is as elusive as the universe itself.

Eric Idle is probably the most American of the Pythons — and I am definitely including Terry Gilliam. Idle is really clever, but very often without substance. He is definitely part of the “silly” faction of Monty Python. But as is often the case, his silliness is linked to great profundity. A good example of that is “Galaxy Song,” which manages to be both scientific and ontological. I would have used the song today if I hadn’t used it for a previous Morning Music.

For the sense of spirituality that I’m going for this week, the better choice is “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Life of Brian. The lines that most affect me are, “If life seems jolly rotten; there’s something you’ve forgotten…” This touches on a question I ask myself a lot, “If existence were just pain, would it still be worth existing?” At one time, I would have said emphatically: no! But now I’m not so sure. If you want to think of it in a highly metaphorical sense, “God’s love” is existence itself. And if you want to go further, his even greater love is that existence ends.

I don’t think the song is a call for optimism. It is rather fatalistic, “Life’s a piece of shit, when you look at it…” I’m pretty sure that all of us are in terrible pain all the time. If you are depressed, you feel every little pain in your body. If you aren’t depressed, all that pain is still there — it just doesn’t bother you. It is a question of perspective — not that I’m saying we have a choice, because ultimately it is all just chemical reactions. For there is nothing either good or bad, but thinking makes it so.

Back in the late 1980s, I was shocked to learn that there were people I greatly respected who hated the Pete Townshend album All the Best Cowboys Have Chinese Eyes. How could that be?! I thought it was one of the greatest albums ever recorded. I think that even more strongly today. But I think I have a better notion of why people don’t like the album. It is personal and unapologetic. It is, in fact, a proud statement that stands against the shallow snark and ironic detachment of the modern world.

There really is nothing easier than standing aloof from your art — silently telling your audience, “Don’t worry; I’m not serious; I too think everything is a joke.” The funny thing is, that I agree with the basic idea: everything is a joke. But does that mean that our actual feelings are any less real to us? Hell, I think consciousness is a chemical trick. But I don’t live my life based upon that belief. I really do feel lonely and embarrassed and stupid. And I can wink about it, but that doesn’t make the feelings any less real to me. For all of our society’s ironic detachment, we are still as lost as ever.

For our week of spiritual songs, I could have picked anything off this album. But I decided to go with my favorite: “The Sea Refuses No River.” I love that the metaphor works on so many levels. You can certainly see the song simply as romantic love. A man saying, “If you love me, you cannot deny my love.” But that’s a pretty limited interpretation of it. Better would be death: we all flow into the sea of eternity. But I always think of it as love in the broadest context. The metaphor illuminates the concept, because love is, ultimately, acceptance.

I got the idea for this week’s Morning Music theme from today’s song, “He Ain’t Heavy, He’s My Brother.” When I was a kid, I wondered if the song was about carrying your brother. It turns out that this is exactly what it’s about. It doesn’t matter how much he weighs, because your brother is never a burden. It is a beautiful idea — especially if it is “brother” writ very large.

The phrase itself seems to go back to Scotland. Here is the writer Ralph Waldo Trine’s description of it, “Do you know that incident in connection with the little Scottish girl? She was trudging along, carrying as best she could a boy younger, but it seemed almost as big as she herself, when one remarked to her how heavy he must be for her to carry, when instantly came the reply: ‘He’s na heavy. He’s mi brither.'”

The version everyone knows is by The Hollies. But the live version I have of them performing the song has Allan Clarke with his bare chest. For any song, that would be bad enough. But for this song, it’s absolutely disgusting. So here is a very nice version by Neil Diamond: