I first heard this song sung by Long John Baldry, many years ago, when I was entirely ignorant about the blues, and it made a lasting impression on me. I was confused by the singer's hard and bitter words to a young woman who had obviously suffered a terrifying loss and then spent the night cowering in the cold and forbidding forest. The words,"Black girl, black girl, don't you lie to me..." sounded particularly shocking when sung by a white man, though of course I later realized that Baldry's sources were the original blues singers. The song stuck with me, and I eventually came to see that it evokes an existence where violence was sudden and unpredictable,even by today's standards. The undercurrent of fear in the lives of poor blacks at the time would have affected relationships at all levels, as writers like Toni Morrison have made clear. The explanation of the lynching makes perfect sense to me. The fact that it's not explicit adds to the power of the song, and blues singers were very familiar with the practise of encoding messages, just as the early gospel singers put their hope for freedom into gospel songs. As for the song being a "zipper song", the folk tradition is full of songs where old lines are used to new effect. This song seems to me to be far too bitter and powerful to be only about betrayed love.

Ellen

p.s. This is my first post, after lurking for a few weeks. This thread, and the one on "Raglan Road" made me really think.