Comments on: Pretty Polly

By: Dave

Dave — Fri, 08 Jun 2007 00:21:41 +0000

Thanks, Dick! You should edit that Wikipedia entry, I think.

By: Dick

Dick — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 21:37:10 +0000

The earliest antecedent to ‘Pretty Polly’ is probably a 17th century broadside ballad from Hampshire called ‘The Gosport Tragedy, or The Perjured Carpenter’, which subsequently mutated into the better known & still sung murder ballad ‘The Cruel Ship’s Carpenter’. Like so many British songs, subsequently it became conserved – albeit in a somewhat different form – in the Appalachian tradition, for which many thanks are owed to those known & unknown singers who maintained it so richly through the 19th & into the 20th century.

And thanks to Dave for rendering it here!

By: Dave

Dave — Thu, 07 Jun 2007 00:05:15 +0000

Well, the Wikipedia says it has roots in earlier songs from the British Isles. That's pretty much a given with Appalachian murder ballads, though, I think. Less Irish than Scottish, probably. Yeah, the illustration was just a screenshot from the Windows Media Player. I didn't know camera tossing was so popular! Looking at some of the pictures, it strikes me as something that could've started by someone making a virtue out of necessity: without a tripod, pictures taken without a flash at night are going to be blurry anyway, so why not play with the blur?

By: Gina Marie

Gina Marie — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 22:29:57 +0000

I'm not an expert on the ancestry of songs, but this tune sounds a little Irish inspired. Do you know anymore more about the song itself? Also like the still shot of the sound waves. It took me a minute to realize what this was. I thought you tossed your camera in the air.

By: Dave

Dave — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 21:29:44 +0000

Oh yeah? Glad that worked for you. The frenzied plucking is actually a half-second echo effect.

By: Brett

Brett — Wed, 06 Jun 2007 20:59:42 +0000

I like the good strong bass notes from the mouth harp when Willie comes in and the frenzied plucking at the terrible end.