Track of the Year: 'Hard Times Come up Once more No More'
Editor'southward Notation: This commodity previously appeared in a different format as role of The Atlantic's Notes department, retired in 2021.
A reader, Rick Jones, writes:
This video of Stephen Foster's smashing song "Difficult Times Come Over again No More" seems to necktie together some of Notes' recent themes. It's a embrace (the song was written in 1856) by the Familia McGarrigle (including a teenage Rufus and Martha) and it speaks to coming troubles and the need for perseverance that Fallows has been evoking in his writing.
If you take a version of "Hard Times" that particularly resonates with y'all and have a retention associated with it, please send us a annotation: hello@theatlantic.com. (The McGarrigle/Wainwright clan also did a version of Stephen Foster'due south sunnier "Ameliorate Times Are Coming.") Update from a reader who flags a rendition of "Hard Times" from Mavis Staples:
From some other reader, Peter:
What a smashing vocal, unfortunately, it seems timeless. I outset heard it in 1981, sung by the outstanding Chapel Hill string band The Red Clay Ramblers. Their wonderful harmony singing frames the vocal with a warmth that counterbalances the bleakness of the lyrics you can here them here.
Some other reader recommends a version that isn't available on YouTube:
My favorite is somewhere in my library of Nib Frisell bootlegs, but information technology's something along these lines. I'm fascinated by songs like this that are just and then sometime and remain in the repertoire. For instance, "St. James Infirmary" is based on "The Rake's Lament," an 18th century British naval vocal. Information technology's also the parent of "Streets of Laredo," the Johnny Cash melody. That'south nuts!
1 more reader, Sydney:
Greetings from just south of Raleigh, NC, as I read all the news I missed terminal nighttime because often, playing with babies beats knowing more details of terrorism. When I saw your post on "Hard Times" I immediately thought of the Yo Yo Ma and James Taylor cover that I had on repeat this time last year while waiting for morning sickness to magically disappear in the second trimester of a twin pregnancy, only instead got more than pains and swelling. I resigned myself to only focusing on seeking the good in life, that hard times would pass.
Proud to say I've now got two happy good for you baby girls, one of whom wants to go along me company at present. Go on upwards the great piece of work.
The covers continue arriving from long-fourth dimension readers, namely Barbara:
It has been so great to encounter the McGarrigle thread spin into Stephen Foster country with "Difficult Times Come Again No More." I like sentimental songs and apparently have a loftier tolerance for pathos, peculiarly if rhyming lines are involved. I idea the song's Wikipedia entry, describing information technology as a "parlor song," was a nice touch that avoided the sentence implicit in "sentimental," even if the judgement is right on target.
The song is one of my favorites from Foster, who is one of my favorite composers. I learned to play some of his songs on the piano from a tattered re-create of a collection of his work. I learned a lot of other folk songs and sentimental favorites from an even more tattered hardcover copy of the Fireside Book of Folk Songs I yet have, although the book now begins halfway through the song "Cockles and Mussels" and ends partway through the alphabetize, with no hardcovers in sight. (I was able to get another copy of the book, covers and all, when a family member passed away, simply I still play from the spineless re-create that opens flat and stays open.)
I am not an achieved pianist and I've grown increasingly rusty. Early in elementary school, I but progressed partway through John Thompson's Mod Grade for the Pianoforte: The Second Course Book: Something New Every Lesson. The "something new" that killed my progress was syncopation, in the form of dotted eighth notes in a version of James A. Bland's "Carry Me Back to Former Virginny." (I understood the mathematics but fine, merely my heed had decided on a rhythm that seemed pleasing to my fingers, and no corporeality of repetition and no lack of a gilt star got me to play the song correctly. Afterwards weeks of intractable stubbornness on my part and the part of the only piano teacher in town, we parted ways. I did take more lessons in loftier school when the wife of a new music teacher at the primal school offered them. I explained my history, and we started out lessons with Bach. It was more successful, but I stopped taking lessons when I left for college.
Anyway, I liked all the versions your readers provided; information technology was interesting to hear a range of interpretations. I like Emmylou Harris's performance of "Hard Times Come up Again No More." I don't know if the cutting I heed to is online, but in this video from a concert, she says that "this is probably the oldest vocal in my repertoire."
The functioning of "Hard Times" I play most oftentimes is past Thomas Hampson, because I like to heed to the anthology in the car and am very fond of his "Cute Dreamer." (The anthology is American Dreamer: Songs of Stephen Foster, and performers include Jay Ungar on violin, Molly Mason on guitar, and David Alpher on piano.)
Different some other covers, Hampson'south doesn't sound like he's actually been through difficult times. His performance instead fits the Wikipedia description; I imagine he sings the song merely equally a gentleman with a skilful voice would have washed years ago in some parlor, playing piano with more finesse than I have and trying to impress the guests at a political party, particularly the woman he has his centre on. The rendition is smooth, and if yous savour Hampson'due south vocalization, you may not realize how awful some parts of the lyrics are. The chorus is what makes the song cracking, non the verses.
Of all the versions, the Mavis Staples cover is my new favorite.
Thanks everyone!
Here's a last update, from the reader who started this "Hard Times" series. Rick indicated in our email commutation that he was a long-fourth dimension reader of The Dish, the blog I helped edit for seven years—three of which were at The Atlantic. If you ever followed the weblog, Rick'southward retrospective hither is poignant:
Well that post is having a pretty good run! I knew of some other versions (east.g.Taylor/Ma), just many were new. The video I sent originally is not the all-time musical quality and it has a kind of bad-mannered family Christmas card experience, which I thought fit the flavour as well. Glad I could contribute.
A "View From Your Window" I just dug up from the Dish email archives, taken by Rick in 2012 around 9pm in Sacramento
It would be inaccurate to phone call me a Dish reader … Dish obsessive is more probable. I checked the site dozens of times a day, every day. About a year ago I made a list of all the wonderful things that The Dish introduced to me and I began to weep halfway through, finally stopping after a page total. I defy anyone to detect me a site today with the depth, achieve, humor, and intellectual courage of The Dish. Where else could I discover Wislawa Szymborska AND Dina Martina, Frederick Seidel AND Robert Earl Keen AND Jack Gilbert, Rod Dreher AND Jennifer Michael Hecht? Become ahead, I'll wait for the answer.
I can notwithstanding call back exactly where and when I read the post from Andrew that you lot all were closing shop: January 28, 2015, 10AM PST, at a very Dishy location: Sacramento Convention Center, men's bathroom in the northwest corner, get-go stall in. (Yep I was lonely. Notwithstanding oversharing, I know, but in the all-time Sully tradition). Reading that postal service felt similar getting the news that a good friend was very ill.
I came to The Dish from an unlikely source: Kendall Harmon, who is the Canon Theologian of the Anglican diocese of South Carolina, and a robust opponent of gay marriage. In 2003, my Episcopal parish was in the midst of tearing itself autonomously later Gene Robinson's ordination and, bewildered, I was seeking dialogue and enlightenment. Kendall had a link to Andrew on his web log roll. Through those years of struggle in the church, Andrew was a bright calorie-free of courage, compassion, insight and sense of humor. I was finally received into the Cosmic church building on Easter Saturday 2006, and some of my discernment was informed by the thought that a church building that could nourish Andrew Sullivan was also a home for me.
The Dish was the greatest feel I had on the spider web and one of the greatest intellectual adventures of my life. As one of the essential parts in that, thank you lot from the lesser of my heart. If you ever come across Andrew, Patrick, and the rest of the gang, let them know how much the weblog meant to me. And should such a project ever be attempted again, please know that you have my intellectual, emotional, and financial support.
Thanks for listening, and have a blessed Christmas and Happy New Year.
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