Many artists have sung the song “On thee Banks of the Ohio”, two of whom were Johnny Cash, and Bill Monroe. Though these talented artists are singing the same song, there are some differences in the symbolism of some of the events that partake throughout the plot of this song. The mood of these songs seem neither overly happy, or depressing, but the tone of voice used suggests that there is a story to be told, that story being the events that unfold when two lovers go on a walk by the banks of the Ohio River.

The version that is sung by Bill Monroe and the Monroe Brothers capture that aspect of folk music in their rendition of this song. With their harmonious lyrics that follow repetitive melody throughout the song, and their fast tempo, it could be construed as a song that is simply telling a story about something that occurred while taking walk by the riverbank. Also because there is no change in tempo, or pitch when they begin to describe how he murders his lover by drowning her in the river after he asks her to marry him, and she refuses; it could be argued that the only reason she is drowned is because she simply said “no”. It seems as if there is no emotion being transferred from the musician to the listeners, and in doing so makes the song itself sound lifeless and boring.

Johnny Cash’s rendition of this song takes a complete different approach. First he sings the song solo, with the accompaniment of an acoustic guitar to make it seem more personal. He too uses the same repetitive melody throughout the song, using the pattern of A, B, A’, B. He too uses a very slow melodic tempo, but this tempo matches the acoustic guitar with the message that he is trying to convey. The overall tone of this version, one that is dark and somewhat eerie, suggests that something dark is going to occur. While as in the Monroe version it was almost cheerful in the beginning, completely throwing you off from thinking that anything

One of the main differences between these two renditions of the song “On the Banks of the Ohio” is the way in which the lovers are murdered.

In the Bill Monroe version, he simply drowns her in the river, not very symbolic in any way; he just seems to do it out of anger because she wouldn’t agree to be his wife. No emotion being showed, just the two voices in harmony talking about how he simply drowned this potential wife to be in the river. This again shows in no way that the man drowning his lover is sad, or that he even cares about what he just did. This is an example of how the majority of folk music is portrayed, that the tone of the music does not match the lyrics that are being sung.

Whereas in the version sung by Johnny Cash, the way that his true love is murdered is symbolic in the way that he plunges a knife into her breast, this could be argued that he plunged a knife into her breast because that is near the location of her heart, representing the fact that if she is not going to be married to him that he is going to take her heart from her as a symbol making the death in this version filled with more meaning than just drowning her like in the Bill Monroe version. Therefore the pain is more predominant and the darkness comes through the Johnny Cash version of this song with more of a punch than the Bill Monroe. This is another way these two versions are different, the fact that the death is more full of meaning in the Johnny Cash version showing that he is trying to convey to his listener that what he is doing has an underlying meaning. That he is doing more than just killing her, he is taking away her ability to love anyone else by stabbing her in the heart.

These are the main differences between two versions of the same song. As you can see, though they share the same title, and events, there are many different interpretations that can be drawn from these two very different and inventively unique artists.