Results for “oral tradition”

Songs

Róisín Dubh (Black Rose): A Rock Legend

Thin Lizzy

This is Thin Lizzy's most explicitly Irish statement, a medley that stitches together fragments of traditional ballads with a…

Irish identity and heritage oral tradition and storytelling myth and heroism

I'll Fly Away

Mississippi John Hurt

This is less a full performance than a fragment captured on tape: Mississippi John Hurt sings the familiar gospel chorus of the…

incompleteness oral tradition humility

Candy Man

Mississippi John Hurt

A rollicking Piedmont blues built entirely on a single, transparent sexual double entendre. Mississippi John Hurt uses the…

sexual innuendo folk humor itinerant male desirability

Bring It on Home to Me

B.B. King

This is less a song than a spoken monologue set to guitar, in which B.B. King explains his relationship to his guitar, Lucille,…

companionship and loneliness music as confession survival and near-death experience

Early In the Morning

Harry Nilsson

A traditional-blues lament about the aftermath of a lovers' quarrel, delivered as a loose, almost improvisational vamp built…

heartbreak and regret isolation blues tradition

Red House

Jimi Hendrix

A twelve-bar blues in the most traditional sense: a man walks to his lover's house only to find himself locked out, suspects…

romantic abandonment resilience through humor the blues tradition itself

La Mañanitas

Nat King Cole

This is Nat King Cole's rendition of "Las Mañanitas," the traditional Mexican birthday and saint's-day serenade, sung not as a…

birth and renewal communal celebration dawn as symbol

C.C. Rider

Lead Belly

Lead Belly's take on the traditional "C.C. Rider" blues strips the song down to its call-and-response bones: a rolling…

betrayal and desire itinerant love (the "rider" figure) sexual boasting and fantasy

The Midnight Special

Creedence Clearwater Revival

CCR's take on this traditional American folk-blues song reworks a prison-camp lament into a swampy rock anthem, keeping its cast…

incarceration and forced labor folk tradition and inheritance longing for deliverance

Voodoo Chile Blues

Jimi Hendrix

This is the slow, extended blues incantation that Hendrix later compressed into 'Voodoo Child (Slight Return),' built around a…

self-mythology supernatural power cosmic/psychedelic imagery

Wayside / Back In Time

Gillian Welch

A ramshackle travelogue through drink, drift, and old-time Nashville nostalgia, stitched to a chorus that keeps yearning to…

wandering and dissipation nostalgia for a vanishing Nashville romantic loss

Pony Blues

Son House

A loose, half-spoken reworking of a traditional blues frame in which a horse becomes a vehicle for restlessness, desire, and…

restlessness and wandering the search for a lover freedom through motion

Acuff-Rose

Uncle Tupelo

A short, plainspoken tribute to country music's staying power, built around the songwriting publishing house Acuff-Rose as…

musical heritage comfort and companionship everyday transcendence

Must Be Santa

Bob Dylan

Dylan's version of the polka novelty song plays it almost entirely straight as a call-and-response Christmas romp, building…

holiday tradition Americana kitsch absurdist humor

White Christmas

Otis Redding

Otis Redding takes the Irving Berlin standard and rebuilds it as soul testimony, stretching its plain, nostalgic lines into…

nostalgia longing devotion

Silent Night

The Temptations

This is a Motown vocal group's reworking of the classic carol, wrapped in a spoken-word frame borrowed from 'Twas the Night…

communal peace holiday tradition spiritual reverence

Crossroads

Cream

Cream's version compresses Robert Johnson's Delta blues into a lean, high-velocity rock performance, turning a song about…

isolation spiritual desperation the blues tradition

Born Under a Bad Sign

Jimi Hendrix

This is Hendrix's take on a blues standard about fatalism and hard luck, stripped down to a single circling complaint. The song…

fatalism poverty and hardship isolation

Bushes and Briars

Sandy Denny

A meditation on empty churches and forgotten faith, framed as a solitary walker's observation of a Sunday service she stands…

religious doubt rural isolation decay of tradition

Treat Her Like a Lady

The Temptations

A mid-80s Temptations single that reworks old-fashioned courtship etiquette into a slick, upbeat pitch. The narrator presents…

chivalry and gender roles nostalgia for traditional courtship masculine self-presentation

Knock On Wood

Seal

Seal's version of the Eddie Floyd/Steve Cropper soul standard is a straightforward cover that leans into the song's original…

superstition and fear of loss romantic intensity gratitude in love

Mystery Train

The Band

This is The Band's cover of the old blues/Sun Records standard, reworked here as a mournful, swampy shuffle rather than a…

loss and abandonment travel as metaphor for separation folk/blues tradition

Hurtin' (On the Bottle)

Margo Price

A honky-tonk drinking song that plays the genre's oldest trick—turning heartbreak into a barroom joke—while quietly admitting…

heartbreak self-destruction futility of escape

Four Years of Chances

Margo Price

A classic country kiss-off built on a simple ledger metaphor: four years of a failing marriage tallied down to the exact number…

infidelity and neglect domestic labor and its imbalance vindication after heartbreak

The Magic Number

De La Soul

De La Soul turns Schoolhouse Rock's arithmetic lesson into a manifesto for the trio itself, using the number three as a stand-in…

group identity and unity originality vs. imitation in hip-hop numerology/mysticism as playful device

Homeless

Paul Simon

Written with Ladysmith Black Mambazo, this track from Graceland fuses Zulu isicathamiya vocal tradition with a spare…

homelessness and displacement cross-cultural collaboration communal grief and endurance

Silent Night

Johnny Cash

This is Johnny Cash's straightforward reading of the traditional carol, sung without irony or reinterpretation. The interest…

nativity reverence light versus darkness

Old Rugged Cross

Loretta Lynn

This is Loretta Lynn's rendition of the 1913 hymn by George Bennard, a foundational piece of American Protestant devotional song…

redemption sacrifice faith and devotion

Blackwaterside

Sandy Denny

This is a traditional British/Irish folk ballad given a spare, haunting reading by Sandy Denny, in which a woman recounts…

seduction and betrayal female shame and defiance broken promises

Trouble, Heartaches and Sadness

Ann Peebles

Ann Peebles addresses trouble, heartache, and sadness as if they were unwelcome visitors, ordering them off her doorstep now…

deliverance through love personification of emotional states resilience

Highway 49

Howlin’ Wolf

A stripped-down Delta blues travel song in which the narrator plans to hit the road at dawn to search for a lost woman,…

restless travel lost love self-medication through drink

House of the Rising Sun

Joan Baez

Baez's early reading of this traditional ballad frames the singer as a woman recounting her own ruin, casting the House of the…

ruin and regret fallen woman narrative fate versus free will

This Train

The Staple Singers

The Staple Singers rework a traditional gospel train song into a stark meditation on death, judgment, and family loss.…

salvation and judgment death and mourning exclusivity of grace

Katie Cruel

Bert Jansch

This is a traditional Appalachian folk lament, here rendered by Bert Jansch in his hushed, weathered late-career voice, about a…

exile and rejection itinerancy social reversal of fortune

Glory, Glory, Hallelujah!

The Staple Singers

This is a traditional African American spiritual, reworked here as a Staple Singers vocal showcase, built almost entirely on a…

death as release suffering and endurance faith under strain

Outside Woman Blues

Cream

This is Cream's electrified cover of a pre-war country blues (originally by Blind Joe Reynolds), turned into a slow-burning…

sexual jealousy infidelity folk wisdom/proverb

A Lover's Concerto

The Supremes

A pastoral love song built on borrowed classical melody (adapted from a Baroque minuet traditionally attributed to Bach,…

idealized romance nature as backdrop for love devotion and permanence

Corrina, Corrina

Mississippi John Hurt

This is Mississippi John Hurt's spare, fingerpicked take on the traditional blues standard "Corrina, Corrina," a song about a…

romantic longing abandonment fidelity despite rejection

Red Dirt Girl

Emmylou Harris

Emmylou Harris narrates the entire life of a childhood friend from rural Alabama, from adolescence to an early, unremarked…

rural poverty thwarted ambition female friendship

Wade In the Water

The Staple Singers

This is the Staple Singers' rendition of a traditional African American spiritual, one long believed to have carried coded…

deliverance/salvation biblical exodus imagery collective faith