this song is very sad to me. i think this must refer to either a miscarriage or a mother/child death due to complications in birth.

i have listen mainly to the tim eriksen, Riley Baugus and tim obrien version the most although the others are very good to so ill be writing about those lyrics here. i have know formal education in regard to the song so please take this with a grain of salt.

i think this song deals with a parents pain after a miscarriage. the song is titled i wish my baby was born which obviously implies the child had never even made it out of the womb alive. the first verse,

I wish, I wish my baby was born
And sitting on its papa's knee
And me, poor girl
And me, poor girl, were dead and gone
And the green grass growing o'er my feet
I ain't ahead, nor never will be
Till the sweet apple grows
On a sour apple tree


the line "and me poor girl, were dead and gone" in this version i think the line is a wish (inferred from the very first line) to trade the life of ones partner for the life of the child. alternatively i think this line could be saying, "and (as for) me (you) poor girl, were dead and gone" so as to say id trade my own life for the babies. however i think the latter to be unlikely because of the grammar at play in the written lyrics but i really cant be certain.


"and the green grass growing o'er my feet" either this line is meant to be about visiting the grave of your dead partner or about wishing for death yourself, and having grass growing over you.

"i aint ahead nor never will be till the sweet apple grows on the sour apple tree" this line kind of stumps me, im left thinking that its about general depression and a bleak outlook on life (not entirley unlikely) but i feel as though this is either a line written in modern times to help finish the song or im just not getting the point of it.

as i think more about the above line i am realizing that perhaps the author is saying Im not ahead (in death) nor never will be, until the sweet apple grows on the sour apple tree (an impossibility. in other words when a parent dies before a child this is keeping up with the natural order of things, the parent is and always has been ahead of the child. but this time around the child has surpassed the parents.

"But still I hope, But still I hope the time will come
When you and I shall be as one" i think this is about the wish for death so as to unite the child and the parent(s)

the next line is interesting... because as i interpeted those above lines i thought to myself, no this song must just be about a miscarriage and not a mother/ child death because it reads as though the father is wishing for the death of the mother rather than the baby but as i get down to this line my perspective has changed.

"I wish, I wish my love had died
And sent his soul to wander free
Then we might meet where ravens fly
Let our poor bodies rest in peace"

i think this verse is a perspective shift to that of the dead mother, who wishes that the father could join the realm of the dead to meet her and their child so they can all walk as one. at first my interpretation of the song was that this was a perspective shift between both of the parents and that both were wishing death for the the other so as to replace the death of the baby but now as i sit writing about it i think more and more that this is about a mother who has died while giving birth to her child and she wishes simply to have her family as one again.

if not i could see this meaning that the mother is wishing to trade her husband for the child but that even then she wishes for them all to be together. this is so sad.

"The owl, the owl
Is a lonely bird
It chills my heart
With dread and terror
That someone's blood
There on his wing
That someone's blood
There on his feathers."

now the song becomes harder for me to interpret. i think as others have said that it is very true that the owl leads a lonesome existence and it is often a haunting omen. it is the Hoo of the owl we hear at night alone in the forest, stalking its prey up above in the trees. i see this as an omen of death. possibly for the father who lives on or for the parents both who wish death upon each other and themselves, so as to reunite this sorrowful family.

in conclusion i think that the parents wishing death on one another is not necessarily out of hatred or selfishness but rather a longing for the family to be whole and in one place together even if its in death. i know ive bounced aroudn alot between which meanings i thought were the correct ones but at the end of the day i see multiple meanings in songs a lot and the ones with the most meanings tend to be my favorites.

RIP all of the miscarried children who never got to see life and my heart goes out to the parents of them i hope you all find peace soon, one day we will all be reunited under heavens beautiful gates and we will see that all of this toil and suffering was part of a greater plan. im nearly going to cry because im so sorrowful for the parents who have lived through the worst pain imaginable.

-your friend, julian.