I was out running an errand last night and heard this on a bluegrass radio show. When I got home I immediately looked for it on YouTube. There is just nothing like Bill Monroe. I think he recorded this song at least twice, and that this one is from 1967. The story told in the song is sort of a folk staple, with many variations.
Funny, I recently heard another bluegrass song that sounded just like this. I wonder if it was just same tune, different words.
It doesn’t strike me as a very distinctive tune. Here’s some info about the song. Says it’s from a German original:
https://www.mandolincafe.com/forum/threads/37449-Midnight-on-the-stormy-deep
Doesn’t all bluegrass sound the same? 🙂
“It doesn’t strike me as a very distinctive tune.”
True — it could be one of those ‘all-purpose’ sorts of tunes that would work with a lot of different lyrics.
Well, country music in general tends to be three-chorders.
But, Stu: not necessarily.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MeZPAQRl7TA
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f1_pfC-q7T0
I was just being funny. Ralph Stanley (weirdly) came and played a show in Silver City, New Mexico while I was living there. It was a lot of fun, and I can say I saw a legend perform! He did that “O Death” song from O Brother Where Art Thou a capella.
It occurs to me that old-time country music ought to be getting “cancelled” etc. Most likely a lot of those old guys were at least somewhat racially prejudiced. And it’s definitely a very “white” art form.
Since everybody is “at least somewhat racially prejudiced” they are probably okay, Mac!
Except for Donald Trump, of course…
That should be the case, but since they’re dead (mostly), they can’t be reprogrammed, so they need to be cancelled.
I have heard this melody or something very similar a billion times in Mountain View.
AMDG
Yeah, it’s a pretty conventional tune. The only thing that makes it stand out is that octave (?) jump in the falsetto on the third line. Which I guess is better described as an aspect of the arrangement rather than the tune itself.
Now they are after Flannery O’Connor for being a racist.
Apparently she was, in a relatively mild sort of way. But “racist” in our current climate covers everything from microaggressions to lynching. You’re either racist or not, and you don’t get any voice in the matter.
https://www.theamericanconservative.com/dreher/cancelling-flannery-oconnor/
Anybody who’s read much of her work and/or letters knows that for her time and place she was a “liberal” on the question of race.
Light On Dark Water 
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