22-9-2014 5.15AM IST

Medhaj News: American folk music is rich but remains mysterious. The music lives, gets passed on from generation to generation and still somewhere loses its traces of origin in the chapters of history. It’s surreal. Today, we are rich in terms of endless information available online but that too is untitled, unfound and unclaimed.

One such melody is ‘In the Pines’ also known as ‘Black Girl’ or ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’. Traditionally, ‘In the Pines’ is known as an American folk song which dates back to 1870s and is believed to be Southern Appalachian in origin. However, no one is known to have composed it first. In the course of time, various artists recorded in numerous genres and gave their personal colours to it.

Nearly 160 different versions of the songs were found when Judith McCulloh researched for a 1970 dissertation. The song is mostly associated with the American blues musician Lead Belly who recorded a number of versions of the song in 1940s and later, bluegrass musician Bill Monroe recorded it after adding the lyrics about a train. Among bluegrass and country music, the song has got several covers. But, naturally this generation recalls the song as ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night?’ popularised by Seattle grunge band Nirvana during MTV Unplugged performance in 1993.

The song has a complex history. In records, the earliest printed version was four lines and a melody compiled by Cecil Sharp in Kentucky in 1917. There were just four lines...

“Black girl, black girl, don’t lie to me Where did you stay last night? I stayed in the pines where the sun never shines And shivered when the cold wind blows”.

The song has made its presence in every set of genres. From bluegrass to country music to alternative music to Seattle grunge. In all its versions, it looks like an old ballad, it becomes unique and has a blues tune which is inseparable from any of its cover. It is chilling and has a certain depth in it, it’s crooning. It is simple, yet sends shivers in you with its strident lyrics.

In 1925, a version of the song was recorded onto phonograph cylinder by a folk collector. This was the first documentation of "The Longest Train" variant of the song. This variant includes a stanza about "The longest train I ever saw". "The Longest Train" stanzas probably began as a separate song that later merged into "Where Did You Sleep Last Night".

Later, Lead Belly recorded the song, featuring Sharp’s variation and includes a mention of decapitation.

“My Husband was a Railroad man Killed a mile and a half from here His head, was found, In a drivers wheel And his body hasn’t never been found.”

The original author is still unknown. The song was recorded and then other songs merged into it make it what it is. Grr.. the history is complex. Although, Lead Belly is credited with the authorship of ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’ on Mark Lanegan’s ‘The Winding Sheet’ and Nirvana's ‘Unplugged in New York,’ but Belly’s own discovery of the song was almost as cast-off as that of the Seattle musicians.

As ‘In the Pines’ has a blurred history, but it never lost the essence. Belly sings it with depth and sadness and misery and simplicity at the same time. Cobain, after fourth minute of the song fastens the riffs and shoots his pitch high, boasting of and bringing out the huskiness in his voice. Well, grunge has its own beauty. It surely has.

"This unique, moody, blues-style song from the Southern mountain country is like a bottomless treasure box of folk-song elements," wrote James Leisy in his 1966 book ‘The Folk Song Abecedary.’ Eric Weisbard of New York Times calls it ‘A Simple Song That Lives Beyond Time’.

With all these versions by legendry artists and historians, the song lives with its beauty, misery, sufferings and melody, intact, and still retains its enigma.