Billy Murray’s 1912 version of Casey Jones is quite different than most music heard today.  Its accompaniment is trumpets and tubas.  These instruments may be unique to their time period and could have been the definition of popular music at that time of the early twentieth century.  The form of Murray’s Casey Jones is AA’AA’ during the normal stanzas, which each consist of four lines.  The chorus of the song begins when Murray says “Casey Jones” and then goes on to say something about Jones.  The form for this chorus is BBBC.  After Murray finishes singing the chorus his band sings the same lines with the same form.  The Grateful Dead’s 1970 version of Casey Jones was recorded nearly six decades later and it is obvious because of the different standard for popular music by that time therefore changing the style of the song.  The Grateful Dead’s edition has stanzas consisting of four lines each with a form of AA’ during the stanzas he repeats the most, which start with “Driving that train, pile of cocaine” and once where it begins with “Trouble ahead, lady in red”.  The form of the other stanzas is BB’.

These songs differ in more than just form.  The lyrics and the way the singers sing the lyrics are both differences also.  The lyrics of Billy Murray’s version tell more of a story of Casey Jones, what happened and what is about to happen.  The lyrics even state the fact that the song is a story by beginning with “Come on round if you want to hear a story about a brave engineer”.  Similarly Murray seems to sing that way as well.  As he sings, he ends each stanza with a lower pitch than the rest of the stanza.  He may be doing this to symbolize how Casey Jones is soon going to reach his fatal destiny.  The Grateful Dead’s version is based more on drugs, referencing that Casey Jones is “high on cocaine” multiple times throughout the song.  The 1970 rendition is more relaxed through the entire song, with the guitars and drum playing a casual melody.  The song never grows much faster.  They might do this to signify the effect that the cocaine is having on Casey Jones.  Perhaps it is making him calmer and therefore the song reflects that.  Meanwhile, Murray uses trumpets and tubas in his adaptation.  These instruments may have been used because they were more popular and common during the early 1900s, or Murray might have been trying to make the music sound train-like.  The whistle of the train sounds much more like a trumpet than a guitar. 

The constant idea of both songs is the storyline that Casey Jones will die.  In Murray’s song it is made known every time he sings the chorus that Jones will die when he sings, “And he took that farewell trip to the promise land”.  Murray turns the song into more of a story however, as mentioned earlier, and in turn emphasizes certain words in order to better explain the story.  The Grateful Dead is not as concerned with telling the story as it is with playing a catchy melody.  The lyrics do not go nearly into as much detail about the storyline as Murray’s song, but the storyline stays consistent with Jones being sent to his death by running into an ongoing train with his train.  The drastic differences between these two renditions of Casey Jones once again might show the difference between the ideas of popular music at their respective times.  The Grateful Dead’s version is much more modern by today’s standards for music than Billy Murray’s version.

In Bill Murray’s version of  “Casey Jones”, the fanfare in the intro and the use of trumpets immediately draws images of marching bands.  After the fanfare intro, the song unfolds with the accompaniment of the trumpets, and helps develop the up-beat tempo that continues throughout the song. The opening line, “Come all around as if you wanna hear/ the story about the brave engineer” creates the mood of the song and shapes the rest of the song into an actual story. In Murray’s version, Casey Jones is seen as a brave engineer whom “won his fame” and “took his farewell trip to the promise land”, and Murray describes the accident as just two trains about to “bump”.  Murray seems to have censored Casey’s death by choosing such a weak verb to describe a train collision.  Murray’s choice of words, throughout this song has undertones of death, however they are masked by the up-beat tempo and the joyful sound of the trumpets.

Throughout Murray’s version, each line of the song is different and it is only redundant when backup singers accompany Bill Murray. The backup singers have a higher pitch when singing, which makes the song feel a bit strained. The way the chorus is sung is reflective of how a train whistle sounds.

 The Grateful Dead’s version opens with hammer-on and strumming on the guitar, and goes right into the lyrics “ Drivin’ that train/ high on cocaine/ Casey Jones better watch your speed” the tempo and rhythm makes it feel more carefree and nonchalant.  However, there is a notable change in expression of the singer right before he sings “the lady in red”.   The drawl that he imposes on “the” right before singing that line draws more attention to his advice: you’re better off dead.  The singer always has a notable change in expression when the idea of death appears in the lyrics. Although the singer forewarns Casey Jones to watch his speed, the way he expresses his warnings doesn’t seem like he’s actively trying to get others to listen to him. The way he expresses the lyrics flow with rhythm on guitar how nonchalant the song is as a whole.

The Grateful Dead’s version of the song has heavy references on the use of drugs. The lyrics describe an addict’s use of a drug as eventually becoming inescapable with “trouble ahead, [and] trouble behind”. As well as the singer’s warning Casey Jones “you better watch your speed”, which could mean either the drug or the pace of how Casey Jones is going through life (how Casey Jones could be shortening it by using cocaine or other drugs). The song mirrors the tempo of a real train, as well as the pace of an addict’s life: it starts off steady, then gets out of control with the amount of drugs they abuse, and finally inevitably leads to their death. The tempo of the song doesn’t dramatically change until the last verse of the song. In the last verse, the drums and the singing gradually picks up and then it slows down. During the final line, the drums are absent to stress the last few words of the song and to also to symbolize Casey Jones’ death. Although the song has a lot of dark undertones, the mood of the song stays consistent. The conflict between music and idea and the storytelling element is what makes the Grateful Dead’s version considered a folk song.  This conclusion could also be said of Bill Murray’s version of “Casey Jones” for the same reasons. 

            In both songs the character of Casey Jones is present, but is portrayed in very different ways. In Billy Murray’s rendition Casey Jones is referred to as “The story of a brave engineer”. In the Grateful Dead’s version, Casey Jones is “High on Cocaine”. These drastically different portrayals are a great example of the different Diasporas revolving around the era in which the song renditions were performed and popularized.

            Billy Murray performed his rendition when the plight of the worker was at its peak and thus can be viewed as a way to belong to society and thereby represented the cultural identity and the Diaspora of the decade. This idea is most prominent in one of the last lines where Casey Jones laments about the tracks he hasn’t ridden. “O the Southern Pacific and the Santa Fe”. The Southern Pacific workers were striking at the time and by changing the lyrics from the original Northern Pacific to the Southern, the song struck a chord with the striking workers.

This change possibly explains why the people seem to be singing about his death in a celebratory way rather than in a mournful tone the lyrics would seem to call for. They are celebrating his unwavering commitment to work despite it leading to his death. These celebratory expressions are most evidenced in the chorus where it sounds like seas of people are chanting “Casey Jones-mounted to his cabin, Casey Jones-with his orders in his hands … And he took his farewell trip to the Promised Land”.

            In the 1970 version by the Grateful Dead the meaning of the original song was essentially commandeered and made to fit the Diaspora of the seventies. Where once this song expressed the workers’ plight, it now expressed the cultural identity of the youth in the seventies, such as making references to cocaine, which undermines Casey Jones as an engineer, and painting him as a druggie who is irresponsible. This notion of being along for the ride but not caring where you’re going is that of a juvenile; who is being pushed through school because someone says so and therefore is indifferent to where the journey ends up. This is expressed in the lyrics “Trouble ahead, Trouble behind, and you know that notion, just crossed my mind”, sung in a AABA pattern in a low pitch as if he were sleeping.

            The accompaniment of each rendition dictates the melody, making each version perceptively different, due to the instruments used. In the 1912 rendition it sounds as if there are trumpets and a piano behind the rhythm along with many voices. This makes me believe the song’s a sort of fanfare. This is opposed to the Grateful Dead’s version where it’s a very acoustic sound using a guitar and another instrument. The Grateful Dead’s use of a steady set of notes and their manipulation of the pitch and length of the lyrics add a mellow and mournful undertone to the song the 1912 version lacks.

            When considering these songs from a folk perspective, it is clear they both have some elements of folk incorporated, albeit one more than the other. The most noticeable tradition is expressed in the 1912 rendition where the lyrics completely contrast with the upbeat melody.  This is especially in the chorus, describing the inevitable crash between the locomotives. “Casey Jones- two locomotives, Casey Jones-going to bump.”  This tension between the lyrics in the melody disorients the listener, because when you realize he’s singing about death it seems as if he doesn’t care about Casey Jones. Another tradition that it follows is not writing folk music down. It was hard to find the written lyrics and I soon discovered the lyrics that I thought were similar were not the same as the song.

            In the Grateful Dead’s version the folk tradition is decidedly less, but there. In the song the lyrics “Trouble ahead: The Lady in Red: Take my advice: you be better off dead.”, the allusion to the “lady in red’ captures the tradition of putting ironies in the songs. The lady in red represents life and sexuality so to tell her you’d be better off dead is commenting on how life and sexuality have become contrived and imperfect, thus dead.

The form of Billy Murray’s version is instrumental intro, A, B, instrumental, A, B, instrumental, A, B, instrumental, A, C. I’m not sure if that’s correct, but it’s a combination of instrumental segments with repeating forms of A and B. The melody of the song stays consistent, with the instruments accompanying the vocals through out the song. Murray sings the song in a way that makes it clear he is telling a story, which he emphasizes by changing his voice when singing certain words. Also, the chorus seems to be at a bit of a slower pace than the verses. The tempo of this version of Casey Jones seemed to speed up and slow down during different parts, and the emotion conveyed by the singer was neutral throughout the song in that it didn’t really change much, even when singing about Casey Jones’ death. 

The story of Bill Murray’s Casey Jones depicts a brave engineer who conducts a steam engine that delivers mail and is going to “the promised land”. During the chorus, when the backup vocals sing “Casey Jones”, the repetitiveness of that high note in the harmonizing of that phrase can feel shrill. Casey Jones was involved in a locomotive accident. At that point in the song, the lyrics to the chorus change, but keep the same melody and form. When Casey Jones’ wife received the news that Casey died, she told her children to stop crying (and get over it) because they “had another Papa on the Salt Lake line”. From this one can infer that in those times, it was not uncommon to have children from multiple fathers because the fathers were always away on business.  

Although the lyrics are different than the Bill Murray version, it’s interesting how trains are also metaphorical in both songs.  Unlike Bill Murray’s version, the one by the Grateful Dead is accompanied by guitars, drums, and has a much clearer quality to it. This version of Casey Jones uses traditional lyrics , the driving of a train, as a metaphor to the Grateful Dead’s use of drugs. The train being at the station on time is a metaphor for the driver using cocaine on time, “at a quarter to ten, you know it’s driving again, driving that train high on cocaine, Casey Jones you better watch your speed.” 

I must say that I’ve always really liked the Grateful Dead version of Casey Jones. The form of the Grateful Dead song is A, A, B, A, A, C and has a relaxed, jamming kind of repetition. Jerry Garcia stresses the last word of each verse, and the instrumentals change when he sings “trouble ahead, lady in red”, which sets a foreshadowing feel. The instrumentals of this version of Casey Jones are great, it is very recognizable and enjoyable, and the vocals are catchy and once in your head, star to sink in and impress upon the listener a visual of the story of Casey Jones.  

            These two songs are clearly written for their time periods. No one had rocked out on a guitar yet, in the early 20^th century. They were more accustomed to this type more boring music. ‘The dead’, had started a phenomenon of psychedelic music. If they were going to be the fourth (recorded and known) band to cover Casey Jones it had to be done in a way that their ever growing following would be interested in. Meaning that it had to have a groovy guitar riff with light background drums and a sort of up beat way of singing it. The lyrics of Bill Murray’s version (After listening to them over and over again, and comparing them with the dead’s) seem to be about an honorable train engineer who is going to do something risky for his family that will leave them better off financially. As you get through the song you realize that he is going to die. At the end its explained that despite the noble act the wife is going to find another replacement husband. The story in the “Grateful Dead’s” song seems to be about a similar story. Someone who has some sort of trouble and his headed towards more. He uses cocaine to escape that trouble but it leads him to more trouble by using it. Just like how the character uses this job to escape his financial troubles in the Murray version but then has trouble ahead which is dyeing in a train crash. This makes me think that the meanings of the Grateful Dead lyrics are superior because they can be universally applied.

            I think that it is this line in the song, “Trouble ahead, trouble behind” that really makes this relate to the working class or the late 19^th century. At that time they were the workers that people like Marx, wrote about. The kind of people that could never gain in the ranks of there bosses only continue to become further away from them. The kind of people that had trouble in that life style and if they tried to get away from it would only end up with more trouble. This applies to people now, who wanted to take out loans to upgrade there lives, (or escape their troubles) and instead now have bad credit and are struggling terribly in these times. “You know that notion just crossed my mind”, is a nice way of saying hindsight 20’20 I would have done things a little differently. I think both versions are good songs with lessons to be learned but the chorus on The Grateful Dead version is just too good and universal. It’s also a much easier listen.

The melody of Fiddlin’ John Carson’s version inflicts sadness upon the listener, almost making it a very emotional song. This difference in melody makes it distinct which song is which. Mississippi John Hurt’s version is almost happy in a way. Although the song tells the life and death of Casey Jones, the rhythm in the song is upbeat and happy, showing that despite Jones’ death everything is not lost. In a way people will remember Casey Jones as the brave person that he was because the song never loses its form. If the song lost its rhythm and turned emotional, much like Fiddlin’ John Carson’s version, than it might be thought of as a depressing song, having the tune change after the death of Casey Jones. However, since Mississippi John Hurt never changed the rhythm, we see a song filled with emotions that aren’t sad or depressing or associated with death in any manner. 

Fiddlin’ John Carson’s version is slower, as I mentioned before, but it’s also the way the song is sung that inflicts this emotion [of grief] upon the listener. By singing the song slower and more cautiously, Carson is developing a mood of grief and sadness over the loss of Casey Jones, the brave engineer that died. In contrast we see in Mississippi John Hurt’s version that the rhythm could really be suited to any song, happy or sad, and it still would be an uplifting song, no matter the context.

This song represents the very definition of folk music. As folk music includes any oral tradition that is carried on throughout generations this song is a great example. The story of Casey Jones and what happened that day is demonstrated through music (the communication) which brings that story to life. One interesting thing about folk music is that the sound of the music and the lyrics don’t always go together (Carson, Benjamin Oct. 8 2009). This is obvious in Mississippi John Hurt’s version of the song as the melody and rhythm are joyful but the context or message of the song and the story of what happened is definitely not (although he was brave, the story tells of his death). The tone of both of these songs are in opposition, one of life after death and one of death. This may be due to the race of each singer (Carson, a white man) versus (Hurt, an African American). It doesn’t make sense for Hurt’s version to be joyful as African Americas experienced great oppression during the 1900s-yet it is. This may be due to the fact that Hurt perspective of life is dramatically different from Carsons’. Perhaps, due to Hurt’s life experiences concerning slavery and the life of a black man in the 1900s, Hurt knows there must be something greater after life on this earth and that we should rejoice when thinking about the afterlife. This may explain the joyful rhythm in his song compared to Carson’s version. 

            Billy Murray’s version of the song is in the form AA’BB’ with the “A’s” being where Billy sings alone and the “B’s” being where his melodic back up singers join in to reinforce the main ideas of the story.  In Murray’s version the “A’s” consist of the narration of the story of the life and tragic death of train engineer Casey Jones.  When it gets to the “B” section, the back up singers come in and repeat the main ideas of the plotline such as “…Going to reach ‘Frisco but we’ll all be dead”, referring to the collision of the two trains and the resulting death of Casey Jones.  The Grateful Dead version is also in the form AA’BB’, alternating between the chorus of “Casey Jones” and the developing story of his eventual death.  The “A” part is a relaxed melody, warning the intoxicated train engineer while the “B” parts tend to go up in pitch when describing the imminent danger facing Casey Jones (i.e. when Jerry Garcia raises his voice to say “Trouble Ahead, Lady in Red!”)

            Billy Murray’s recording of this song is much older, circa 1912, and therefore much poorer in quality then the more modern 1970 Grateful Dead version.  The pitch of the Murray recording is much harsher and harder to listen to because of the poor quality of the recording.  The recording has a lot of static in the background and possibly Billy Murray was accounting for this when he made the notes much more powerful and sharply pitched to come put clearer against the unwanted background noise.  The Grateful Dead version of the recording has the easy listening vibe synonymous with the counterculture of the late 1960’s to 1970’s.  There is no unwanted noise in the background of the recording because of the more advanced recording system.  Both versions of the song are easy to follow along with and read like a story is being narrated by the singers.  Each version clearly follows the tale of a train conductor facing the dangers of an opposing train, while maintaining a streamline narration of the eventual death of Casey Jones throughout the songs. 

            The two versions of the songs vary greatly from melody to the actual genre of music itself.  Even though the songs may be stylistically different, the actual content of the songs exemplifies the way that music, and more specifically folk music has changed with the evolving times.  Murray’s version embodies the ideas of a traditional folk song: very sad lyrics narrating the death of a train engineer yet the music does not reflect any sense of sadness whatsoever by changing the melody or pitch to convey emotions.  The Grateful Dead version keeps some of the same ideas of folk music yet evolves the folk tradition to put a sense of emotion in some of the lyrics, very untypical of a folk song.  Jerry Garcia raises his voice, giving the listener a sense of panic when singing lines such as “Switchman’s sleeping…train 102 is on the wrong track and headed for you”.  The Grateful Dead version still embodies the realm of folk music by singing about working class issues, such as the drug use that was very popular in that time, yet they evolved folk music by conveying emotions with the music that match the sadness of the lyrics. 

            Billy Murray’s version of the song is what is typically called a “Parlor Song” in that it tells stories that are easily relatable to the working class families that would sit around the piano and play this music.  This version of the song was written in 1912 when many fathers and husbands were away working and the mother was left alone with the children to take care of.  Murray’s recording expressed the idea that money was valued over love with the lyric “Hush your cryin’, you’ve got another Papa on the Salt Lake line”.  Money was highly valuable for working class families and it is made clear by the idea that a husband was valuable for his money and was replaceable as long as the new husband had the same monetary backing. 

            The Grateful Dead version of the song updates the story to make it relevant to the working class people in the 1970’s.  With the lyric, “Driving that train, high on cocaine…” it updates the song to be relevant with the drug culture that was wildly spreading around the nation in the early 1970’s.  It takes the traditional working class train engineer story and puts a relevant to the era spin on the story, making it a folk song for the emerging generation of working class youth in the hippie era of the early 1970’s.  

In both of these recordings, the form of the song is a verse that repeats several times. Each verse is five lines long, in a form that might be described as AA’A”BB’. The “A” is like a celebratory shout, starting high in its first words (“John HENRY!”) and trailing off in the last words of each line. The third “A” always has more syllables than the first two, so that each shout seems to add a larger amount of information to an accelerating story. The last two lines of each verse are repetitive both in melody and in lyrics.

John Carson’s recording of the song is compromised a little by scratches on the very old recording, and it seems as though he is straining his voice to be heard (as though perhaps he knows that the technology is imperfect!). His lyrics seem to wander from place to place, and sometimes it is difficult to understand the logic that connects one verse to another. Woody Guthrie’s recording uses lyrics that seem more polished, with verses organized in pairs: a pair about his birth, and then pairs in which two verses reflect the two sides of a conversation, first with his captain and then with his “shaker.” John Henry’s sickness and death is told in the final pair.

The songs share the same melody and form, but the differences between the interpretations reflect an evolution away from folk music. Carson’s recording is called “John Henry Blues”, but it has features typical of the folk music discussed in our lectures. Like “The Sun and the Moon”, Fiddlin’ John Carson’s recording keeps changing its rhythm, and is hard to tap a foot to.  The testimony of John Lomax, quoted in Barker and Taylor’s “Where Did You Sleep Last Night,” also may be relevant. Lomax claimed to be searching for music that is not “too refined” (19), and this song would certainly fit that category for some listeners. By contrast, Guthrie’s recording seems to have a steady rhythm, and clear phrases. Perhaps Guthrie’s presentation represents a mixture of elements from both folk song and “Parlor Song,” whereas the older recording from Carson represents a clearer example of folk music: a type of music that is associated with a specific community of listeners, and uniquely comprehensible to that group.

However, some issues contradict that possibility. In John Carson’s version of the song, sung with only one voice, accompanied by one fiddle, rhythm can seem quite expressive and free at times, conveying some of the musician’s attitudes toward the ideas in the song. One moment in particular in which this approach to rhythm seems to affect the emotional impact of the song is in the lyric of the fourth verse. John Henry reassures the captain that the tunnel isn’t collapsing; it’s “just my hammer hawsing in the wind”, Carson pauses noticeably on the syllable “haws”, and the rhythm seems to break. The effect is a little disorienting. This nicely implies the heavy and frightening rhythm of a hammer swung over Henry’s legendary shoulders. Normally this coupling of specific emotions with specific musical sounds is more associated with art music than with folk. The differences in rhythm and melodic delivery between the two recordings are note-worthy, and they contradict the idea that Guthrie is evolving away from folk music.

Woody Guthrie’s version also possesses little variation in the singing of the melody from one verse to the next. The tune is sung and harmonized by two men, and the well-rehearsed pair stick to their notes. Guthrie’s steady guitar accompaniment makes the interpretation feel regular and precise, allowing less freedom to pause. This doesn’t prevent Guthrie from interjecting humorously between some of the lines of the lyric, with comments like “yessir” and “what’d he say?” But the singers do not change the emotional presentation of their voices, and this produces a tension—typical of folk songs—between the constancy of the music and the dynamic and emotionally ranging story of the lyrics.