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“Tom Dooley”
Artist: Kingston Trio
Music / Lyrics: Traditional American (North Carolina)
Label: Capitol, 1958
The enormously popular Kingston Trio grew out of the same tradition as seminal American folk
groups such as the Weavers, with one important difference. Where many of the artists who
inspired the 1960s folk revival were noted for their leftist politics, the Kingston Trio entertained
America with energetic, tuneful, harmonized versions of more politically “safe” American folk
standards such as “Tom Dooley.” Although the group was partly a product of the late 1950s North
Beach scene in San Francisco, they did not inhabit the same cultural, musical, commercial, or
political space as the Beats and the more political folk songwriters such as Phil Ochs, Bob Dylan,
and Pete Seeger. The Trio’s appeal was to a middle-class, mostly college-educated, Caucasian
audience who were intrigued by the folk revival’s narrative songs but were (in the very early
Sixties) rather indifferent to the more political wing’s critical stances.
The Trio’s smooth, melodious arrangement belies the grisly subject matter, which was the real-life
murder in 1866 of a woman named Laura Foster. Folk music legend Doc Watson says that he
heard his elders tell stories about the actual event, a crime of passion that involved four people:
Tom Dula and Annie Melton (the suspects), Sheriff Greyson, and Laura Foster (the victim).
Melton, an exceptionally beautiful woman, was apparently acquitted by an all-male jury; Dula was
convicted and hung. According to Doc Watson’s great-grandmother, Betsy Triplett Watson, Annie
Melton confessed to the murder on her deathbed, convinced that she could see the flames of hell
flickering at the foot of her bed.
Musical style notes
The musical structure of “Tom Dooley” is quite typical of an American folk ballad – a series of
verses, all of which have the same melody. The only thing that distinguishes the refrain from the
verse is the repeating text:
Hang down your head Tom Dooley
Hang down your head and cry
Hang down your head Tom Dooley
Poor boy, you’re bound to die.
Throughout history, the singing of ballads functioned as entertainment, storytelling, and news
broadcasting. When the primary engagement of the listener rests with the text, the fact that the
melody has repeated itself twenty or thirty times in succession is not a problem. (The original Tom
Dooley ballad has at least eight or nine verses, depending on whose version you consult.) The
singer would have made subtle changes to the melody – an ornament here, a dynamic change
there – and this would have provided variety, just as a storyteller modulates her or his voice for
dramatic effect. In modern times, musicians are apt to change both the vocal and instrumental
texture from one verse to another in order to introduce musical variety to the repetitive verse
form. In “Tom Dooley,” The Kingston Trio accomplishes this with instrumental combinations and
with newly created melodies interwoven with the original melody in the refrain.
Musical “Road Map”
Timings
0:00-0:30
Comments
Introduction
Lyrics
Recited: Throughout history…
Acoustic guitar, banjo, recitation.
…when the sun rises tomorrow, Tom
Dooley must hang.
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley,
Hang down your head and cry,,,
0:30-0:46
Guitar plays the same chord changes as the
verse; the banjo is playing the melody.
Refrain
0:46-1:02
Sung in unison.
Verse 1
1:02-1:18
Lead singer sings melody and text; other two
voices sing “oo” syllable.
Refrain
1:18-1:33
Sung in harmony.
Verse 2
1:33-2:04
Refrain repeats (twice)
1:48 second refrain
2:04-2:18
One voice sings the melody of the refrain, and
the other two voices sing alternate melodies
that intertwine in counterpoint with the main
melody.
Verse 2 repeats
2:18-2:34
Refrain
This time tomorrow,
Reckon where I’ll be…
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley…
2:34-2:48
Sung in harmony.
Refrain repeats
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley…
2:48-3:04
At louder volume with additional harmonies.
Last line repeats three times; last time by the
lead singer
I met her on the mountain…
There I took her life…
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley…
This time tomorrow,
Reckon where I’ll be…
(well, now boy…)
Hang down your head, Tom Dooley…
Poor boy, you’re bound to die…