Tom Dooley (song)

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This article is about the song. For people of the same name, see Tom Dooley.

"Tom Dooley" is an old North Carolina folk song based on the 1866 murder of a girl named Laura Foster in Wilkes County. It is best known today because of a hit version recorded in 1958 by The Kingston Trio.

Contents

[edit] History

Impoverished Confederate veteran Tom Dula, Foster's lover and probable fiancee, was convicted of her murder and hanged in 1868. The lyrics to the song were written by a local poet, Thomas C. Land, shortly after the hanging.

Dula's lover, Anne Foster Melton, whose comments led to the discovery of the body, was acquitted in a separate trial based on his word. Many believed she was the real killer and that Dula admitted guilt to protect her. Though Dula's trial was widely publicized for its time, and former governor Zebulon Vance represented him pro bono, fanciful legends soon sprang up based on interpretations of the song.

The "Grayson" in the song has sometimes been characterized as a romantic rival of Dula's or a vengeful sheriff who captured him and presided over his hanging. Some variant lyrics of the song portray Grayson in that light. Col. James Grayson was actually a Tennessee politician who had hired Dula on his farm when the young man fled North Carolina under suspicion and was using a false name. Grayson did help capture Dula and return him to North Carolina, but otherwise played no role in the case.

Dula was tried in Statesville, because it was believed he could not get a fair trial in Wilkes County. He was given a new trial on appeal but he was again convicted, and hanged on May 1, 1868. His alleged accomplice, Jack Keaton, was set free. On the gallows, Dula reportedly stated, "Gentlemen, do you see this hand? I didn't harm a hair on the girl's head."

Dula's last name was pronounced "Dooley," leading to some confusion in spelling over the years. (The pronunciation of a final "a" like "y" is an old feature in Appalachian speech, as in the term "Grand Ole Opry").

The doleful ballad was probably first sung shortly after the execution and is still commonly sung in North Carolina. The song was selected as one of the Songs of the Century.

[edit] Recordings

Several notable recordings have been made:

  • Grayson and Whitter, Victor, 1929. The first recorded version by a group well known at the time.
  • Frank Warner, Elektra, 1952. Warner, a folklorist, unaware of the 1929 recording, in 1940 took down the song from Frank Proffitt and passed it to Alan Lomax who published it in Folk Song: USA.
  • The Kingston Trio, Capitol, 1958. This recording sold in excess of six million copies and is often credited with starting the "folk boom" of the late 1950s and 1960s. It only had three verses (and the chorus four times).
  • Lonnie Donegan, also 1958. This version charted in the United Kingdom simultaneously with the Kingston Trio's. Its uptempo skiffle style was a contrast to the U.S. version's slower arrangement.
  • Macabre Chicago based metal band recorded a song called Tom Dooley from the Morbid Campfire Songs cd.

[edit] Parodies

Tom Dooley prompted a number of parodies, either as part of other songs (Ella Fitzgerald drops an altered line from the song into a recording of Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer or as entire songs, including one called Hang Down Your Head Tom Dooley, Your Tie's Caught In Your Zipper by the Incredible Bongo Band in 1972.

The song and legend were parodied by a one-record novelty act called Waldo, Dudley and Dora, whose 45-rpm Grayson Goofed was issued as Awful Records release #PU-1. The record is a direct parody of the 1958 Kingston Trio version. In it, verses sung to the Tom Dooley melody alternate with mini-skits (Dooley's fateful encounter with Laura Foster, Grayson alerting the sheriff of Dooley's deed, Dooley's trial), as "John" Grayson's public reputation erodes from "a fine man" to "a stoolie" (i.e., stool pigeon) to "a gink".

[edit] Movie

The Kingston Trio hit inspired a quickie feature film, "The Legend of Tom Dooley." It starred rising TV actor Michael Landon in the title role and was released in 1959. It was essentially a Western set just after the Civil War. Despite the title, it was not about any traditional Tom Dula legends or the actual case. Instead, it was apparently a screenwriter's imagined version of what the song might have been about.

[edit] Lyrics

Chorus:
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley
Poor boy you're bound to die.
You left her by the roadside
Where you begged to be excused
You left her by the roadside
Then you hid her clothes and shoes
(chorus)
You took her on the hillside
For to make her your wife
You met her on the mountain
And stabbed her with your knife
You dug the grave four feet long
And you dug it three feet deep;
You rolled the cold clay over her
And tromped it with your feet.
(chorus)
"Trouble, oh it's trouble
A-rollin' through my breast;
As long as I'm a-livin', boys,
They ain't a-gonna let me rest.
I know they're gonna hang me,
Tomorrow I'll be dead,
Though I never even harmed a hair
On poor little Laurie's head".
(chorus)
"In this world and one more
Then reckon where I'll be;
If it wasn't for Sheriff Grayson,
I'd be in Tennessee.
You can take down my old violin
And play it all you please.
For at this time tomorrow, boys,
It'll be of no use to me".
(chorus)
"At this time tomorrow
Where do you reckon I'll be?
Away down yonder in the holler
Hangin' on a white oak tree.
(chorus)
Preceded by:
"It's Only Make Believe" by Conway Twitty		 Billboard Hot 100 number-one single
Issue Date: November 17, 1958		 Succeeded by:
"To Know Him is to Love Him" by The Teddy Bears (band)

[edit] References

  • Lomax, Alan, Editor, (1947). Folk Song: U.S.A. New York: Duell, Sloan and Pearce. (Also printed under the title Best Loved American Folk Songs).
  • West, John Foster (1993). "Lift Up Your Head, Tom Dooley". Asheboro, N.C., Down Home Press.

[edit] External links

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