The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #47394   Message #708966
Posted By: CapriUni
11-May-02 - 02:17 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: Two Brothers
Subject: Lyr Add: THE ROLLING OF THE STONES
And then there is the version called THE ROLLING OF THE STONES, at the Contemplator's Francis J. Child Ballads site, here, though I can not make the lyrics match the tune as it plays... I think the tune is from another version of the song.

Gordon Bok, Ann Mayo Muir and Ed Tricket sing a version on one of their live albums (Minneapolis Concert, maybe?. It doesn't mention the rising from the grave, but there is one line that is creepily suggestive of vampires. Here are the lyrics as I remember them (can't find the liner notes at the moment:

Will you go to the rolling the stones
The tossing of the ball,
Or will you go to see pretty Susie dance among them all?

They had not danced but a single dance
Nor half the hall around,
When the sword that hung from her brother's side gave him a dreadful wound.

They picked him up, and they carried him along,
And laid him there on the ground
And there he lay till the break of day
Nor made no single sound

Susie charmed the birds from the sky, the fish from out the bay
And she lay all night in her true lover's arms,
And there was content to stay.

Will you drink of the blood,
The white wine or the red,
Or will you go and see pretty Susie when that I am dead?

This was the first version of the song that I learned, and for quite a while I couldn't figure out if she was dancing with her brother, and he happened to fatally wound himself with his own sword (Just how clumsy can you get?). Now that I know this song's "siblings", it seems pretty clear that in this version, the jealous murderer is Susie's brother, not the true love's brother. Whether that's because her brother had incestuous feelings for her, or simply didn't like the match, I can't say...