The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #167850   Message #4054474
Posted By: cnd
23-May-20 - 12:25 AM
Thread Name: Manly Wade Wellman
Subject: RE: Manly Wade Wellman
"Walk Like a Mountain" had 4 songs:
  - "Lonesome River" - p. 145
  - No Hiding Place - p. 148
  - "Strap Buckner" - pp. 150-151
  - John Henry - p. 153

Lonesome River
"By the shore of Lonesome River
Where the waters ebb and flow,
Where the wild red rose is budding
And the pleasant breezes blow,"

"It was there I spied the lady
That forever I adore,
As she was a-lonesome walking
By the Lonesome River shore...."

This one's got me stumped. I really wanted it to be "Young Ronald" because of the song's text of a man fighting a giant for the hand of a woman and how well it worked with the story, but unfortunately the text doesn't scan well enough to make me happy with that selection, and because the ballad has never been recorded in America. Honestly, not sure for this one. I'm really tempted to read it to the tune of "Rose Conelly" but Rose Conelly's is really the opposite mood of what we're going for. "Lonesome River" by the Stanley Brothers is also a tempting guess but still has the same wrong mood and doesn't quite match the pacing of the text to me.

No Hiding Place
"Went to the rock to hide my face,
The rock cried out, 'No hiding place!'..."

This is a short snippet of the hymn, No Hiding Place

Strap Buckner
"Strap Buckner he was called, he was more than eight foot tall,
And he walked like a mountain among men.
He was good and he was great, and the glorious Lone Star State
Will never look upon his like again."

While Strap Buckner is a real life Texas folk hero, I haven't been able to find a single song about him. It reads a lot like John Henry, though, so I'll just say it's a version of that song.

John Henry
"John Henry said to his captain,
'A man ain't nothing but a man,
But before I let that steam drill run me down,
I'll die with this hammer in my hand'...."

"John Henry drove steel that long day through,
The steam drill failed by his side.
The mountain was high, the sun was low,
John he laid down his hammer and he died...."

While the last stanza appears to be more or less a Wellman original, the John Henry song is otherwise one of the most well-known folk songs of the United States, and I find no point in making links elsewhere.