Bill Monroe and the Monroe Brothers' "In The Pines" - Discussion
Friday, October 9, 2009 at 8:26 PM This song is very interesting because it conveys themes of hard labor and lost love while the music accompaniment to the lyrics and the singing remain relatively static. The singing seems to convey a certain sense of living a very hard life, which is described in the lyrics, but there is still the lack of change in emotion. For example, from the singer describing the work he had done on the railroads with the “long steel rail and a short crosstie,” to the fact that his proposed lover “caused [him] to leave [his] home” for treating him so poorly, there’s no difference in the inflexion of the voice to depict any sense of depression or sadness in one event compared to the other.
The form is about as simple as it gets, with it repeating after every second line (e.g. “…Georgia line,” “…by at 9,” “…cold wind blows,” etc). There is a small change in the way each line is sung, but only due to the number of syllables in each line, not really enough to consider it an entirely different part of the form. The form is broken up, though, by two different instrumental sections between each six-line verse.
Reader Comments (2)
Philippe - You're right that the form is very simple and repetitive. I'd encourage you to think about more aspects of the song if you choose to write an essay, like the difference between Bill Monroe's group and multiple instruments and Lead Belly's simplicity and solitude, or even Nirvana's performance. One thing that might be interesting to talk about is Kurt Cobain's intense, passionate singing, especially towards the end of the performance, in comparison to Bill Monroe's very cowboy-esque, consistent performance (I know I can practically see the horses trotting...).
A lot of students observed that the Kossoy Sister's version of "On the Banks of the Ohio" sounded “disturbing” or “morose,” like Megan Moore, whose post you can read here: (http://benleedscarson.com/by-banks-in-pines/author/meganmoore). Why do the Kossoy Sisters in particular catch your attention? It could be argued that Bill Monroe, at least, if not Johnny Cash as well, performed with the same lack of emotion as the Kossoy Sisters. So is it their gender that makes a difference? Do we find their rendition “creepy” in the same way we find, for example…the twin girls in The Shining creepy? Is it because women are seen as more innocent? Do we expect men to commit murder before women? Kim Riamaud does a good job of explaining her opinion on this notion: (http://benleedscarson.com/by-banks-in-pines/author/kimrambaud).
(If this doesn’t seem relevant to your post, please think about it and make comments anyway, because it is relevant to the class! Also, make sure you’re commenting on other students’ posts, not necessarily just replying to me, your TA.)