'it has been butchered by many performers'

Foolstroupe, I agree. Any commercial version I've heard of this has been loud and coarse, involving a lot of bellowing. This from a person who's ill, perhaps dying?

Another thing they do is bellow the highest note of each line, whether it's an important word or not:
   
   "..they CAAAALL the Risin' Sun,
    and it's BEEEEEN the ruin of many of poor boy..."

However, there is no law which says that the highest note of a line has to be the loudest.

On days when I'm feeling down, I sing this around the house, softly and sadly, trying to feel the bitterness and the longing for happier days. It doesn't matter whether it's a boy (customer) or a girl (prostitute) - both would have the same feelings.

Other slob stuff in the commercial versions:

1. Old timers would never have said 'My mother was a tailor.' Tailors were men. (Still are, no matter how many disappointed yuppies name their daughers Taylor.)

2. The reference to blue jeans seems all wrong. Anachronistic, for one thing. Some lazy person probably slapped it in there to get a rhyme for New Orleans. (which is pronounced N' OR-lins when it's at home.)


So I ran the verse through my folk processor and it came out thus:

My mother was a seamstress.
She sewed the finest seams.
My father was a gamblin man
way down in New Orleans.

Some days I prefer 'He came from New Orleans.'

Since 'New Orleans' isn't pronounced the way a New Orleans native would say it, the singer should use a Southern accent which is not from there. I try to imitate the sound of Kentucky or Tennessee, but I'm by no means an expert.

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Capitan Acab: I'm with you.