Some months back, I watched Ken Burns’ remarkable series about country music. It was like a graduate course about the origins and evolution of this kind of music in the United States. I actually took notes. So many performers over so many decades were described, with videos of them performing, wearing outfits that were almost caricatures of themselves. I had never listened to much of that music, and there was so much I was unfamiliar with. ( I know, I should have said “with which I was unfamiliar”. I majored in English in college, but the proper way of expressing that sounds stilted and weird.) For me, the most familiar songs were old ballads that originated in Europe, such as “Barbara Allen” and “The Water is Wide”, not the songs that became nationally popular in the US. I still love the simple ballads.
Inspired by the country music series, I decided to write two songs that were in the country genre. For no reason that I can comprehend, it was easy to create both of them. One is quite serious and sounds authentic. I haven’t recorded it yet, but I will. It’s called, “A MIner’s Wife” and is a bit of tear jerker without being maudlin. The other, God forgive me, is called, “I Wanna Be a Virgin When I Marry”, sung with a southern accent and very tongue in cheek. I have had a lot of fun with this song, and have no idea how my brain downloaded this so easily from sources that are obscure to me. I grew in in Brooklyn, for heaven sake! I played basic rhythm guitar on this recording, sang two harmonies on the chorus to create an angel choir, and my brilliant sound engineer Tom Wasinger added all the other instruments. I hope you enjoy the song half as much as I did creating it with his help.
Susan Rose: Singing Grandma 