Yesterday afternoon I heard Eric Levine (of the Disabled in Action Singers) sing "Black Girl" ("In the Pines") while accompnaying himself on a 12-string guitar in the style of Leadbelly. Eric introduced the song with a claim that I have never heard before: the story line is set against the background of a lynching. Consider, for example, this stanza:

Your daddy was a railroad man,
Died a mile and a half from town,
His head was found in the driver wheels,
And his body it never was found.

Note that in some versions it is the "husband" rather than the "daddy" who dies, and in some versions "His head was found round the firebox door" instead of "in the driver wheels." In any case, I had presumed that the father ("daddy") or lover (also "daddy" in colloquial) or husband had perished in a grisly railroad accident. But if that were the case, so Eric argues, why was the body never found? Even if he were decapitated in the accident, the man's remains would be somewhere in the wreckage.

On the other hand, according to Eric, if this were a lynching, anything could have happened. Burning lynching victims, whether dead or still alive, was common, and the ashes could have been left to scatter. Even if the victim weren't burnt, the body could have been buried in the woods, dumped in a lake, left for the animals, etc. Furthermore, the mutilation of lynching victims was also common. Cutting off the hands, the genitals, and even the head are all well documented practices.

Now let me take Eric's scenario a little further. If the father/lover/husband were a railroad man, maybe the mob tossed his head onto the tracks (where it was "found in the driver wheels") or into the cab of a locomotive (where it was "found round the firebox door") as a way of sending a message to the local black populace ("don't think you're more than a n----- just because you got a job on the railroad") or to the railroad compnay ("don't even think of hiring a n----- to do a white man's job").

Finally lets consider the dialogue of the song. The man asks:

Black girl, black girl, don't lie to me,
Tell me where did you sleep last night?

And the woman replies:

In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines,
And I shivered the whole night through.


In light of the lynching scenario, this is no mere tale of a suspicious boyfriend. This instead is the story of a woman who is haunted by terrifying memories. She is frightened, not deceitful. Maybe she heard, saw, or imagined something that led to to believe that the mob was returning for her this time. Her response was to hide out deep in the woods all night. And instead of giving her comfort and support, her boyfriend badgers her with questions and ultimately does not believe her answer.

In any event, whether or not we accept the lynching premise, this is a song which brings together race, sex, jealousy, death, and trains. In other words, it's a nearly perfect American folk song. No wonder it is so enduring.

---- Steve