Origins: Wedding Dress

Subject: Origins:
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 29 Aug 03 - 04:55 PM

Anybody know or have interesting ideas about the story behind the song "Wedding Dress" It's in DT - begins,

"Well, my little Doney gal, don't you guess
Better be making your wedding dress..."

The Doney gal responds that "It's already made..."

and goes on to describe it, variously as "trimmed in green/prettiest dress you've ever seen," "trimmed in red/stiched all around with a golden thread," etc.

The song closes with the interesting line, "Well, she wouldn't say yes, wouldn't say no/All she'd do was sit and sew."

Sounds like an interesting story - was she, a la Odysseus' crafty wife Penelope, making her wedding dress by day and undoing it by night to prevent having to get married? Any thoughts or pronouncements?

(By the way, I posted to an earlier thread this morning looking for the tune or a recording, but the bit of the gorgeous modal melody I'd lost has come back to me.)

Subject: RE: Origins: Wedding Dress
From:
Date: 30 Aug 03 - 12:42 AM

For the rest of the words:

Wedding Dress

Subject: RE: Origins: Wedding Dress
From:
Date: 30 Aug 03 - 12:46 AM

It shows the initials JN at the end. Wonder if that person knows more about it. Quick searches on the internet on sections of the song haven't come up with any more information.

Subject: RE: Origins: Wedding Dress
From: Q (Frank Staplin)
Date: 30 Aug 03 - 01:13 AM

Could be the Appalachian song, which I don't know. Three sources in folk index

Subject: RE: Origins: Wedding Dress
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 01 Sep 03 - 10:07 PM

Thanks, George and Q.

I had found the lyrics in the DT, and the song is pretty clearly Appalachian in origin. Perhaps I shouldn't have chosen the prefab heading "Origins," as I'm interested in the back story of the song - what's going on under the surface, if anything:

-Is there any symbolism to the various colors of the trim?
-Is the seamstress possibly trying to put off her wedding day by changing the color scheme constantly?

-Or is this just a simple-minded song with a lovely modal melody?

Any thoughts?

Subject: RE: Origins: Wedding Dress
From: Stewie
Date: 01 Sep 03 - 11:22 PM

Jody Stecher recorded it on 'Snake Baked a Hoecake'. See his note to the song in the reissue Jody Stecher 'Going Up On The Mountain' Acoustic Disc-39. Stecher had the song from Holly Tannen who had learned it from Peggy Seeger. After hearing Stecher sing it, a woman at one of his gigs in Scotland expounded to him on the 'political symbolism' of the colours. Accordingly, Stecher later asked Seeger: 'So wots da deal wid da colours?' 'Oh, she said with a big smile, I only had one verse or two so I picked some more colours and made up something to rhyme'. As Stecher says, 'Bing! The sound of truth'.

Evidently, Seeger's recording may be found on Peggy Seeger 'The Folkways Years, 1955-1992: Songs of Love and Politics' (1992) SF-40048.

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Origins: Wedding Dress
From:
Date: 02 Sep 03 - 01:20 AM

Chris, I saw where you said you had the lyrics. I thought it might help someone if they had more than a bit of the lyrics so I put in that link.

Don't apologize. The Origins: prefix is exactly what your request was designed for.

Subject: RE: Origins: Wedding Dress
From: Chris Seymour
Date: 02 Sep 03 - 10:16 PM

Hmm. I love the folk process.

I once mentioned to Peggy Seeger that I liked a tune that (according to liner notes) she'd made up to fit an anonymous poem about a mine disaster, and she said she'd forgotten she'd made it.

Thanks for explaining, George.

Subject: RE: Origins: Wedding Dress
From:
Date: 02 Sep 03 - 11:38 PM

You're quite welcome, Chris.

Note that is MY interpretation of the Folk Process. I'm sure there are many others quite as valid as mine.

Still, enjoy the music whatever way you get it. It's all good. Just don't get caught up in singing it a "specific" way. That's not how folk music works.