She has the most amazing voice. The actor playing the fiddle is Muse Watson. He played Mike Franks on NCIS, the horse trainer in "Something to Talk Aboot"
I live in the Appalachian mountains this is my heritage and it is slowly being forgotten. The younger kids don't care to learn the music ,cooking ,building smoke houses. I was blessed to have lived here and listened to my grandparents and great grandparents their wisdom will thankfully continue through me and what I've taught my boys.
Everyone knows O Brother Where Art Thou, and that soundtrack is truly gold, but this movie is criminally underrated. This and the Gillian Welch and David Rawlings version of Wind and Rain are just.... fucking perfect.
jim taylor you are right. My dads family all came from WVA mountains.Strangely even though I never lived there. This music calls to me and awakens feelings.
Lyrics: When I first come to this country in 1849 I saw many fair lov'yers But never saw mine I viewed it all around me Saw was quite alone Well me, a poor stranger, and a long way from home Fair thee well to ol' mother Fair thee well to father too I'm going for to ramble This wide world all through And when I get weary I'll sit down and cry And think of my Saro, pretty Saro, my bride Well, I wished I was a turtle dove Had wings and could fly Far away to my lovers lodgings Tonight I draw the night; And there in her Lily white arms I'd lay there all night And watch through them little wind'ers for a dawning of day
Being Australian, i grew up with zero knowledge of this kind of music until my Mum made me sit down and watch Songcatcher. Captivated isn't even an adequate description. Appalachian Folk is on a level all of it's own and (if it even makes sense) makes my soul ache to listen to....
What a kind comment. I'm only just beginning to uncover my own Appalachian roots, and I thank you for discovering and appreciating the music of my ancestors. How great is the internet?
@@MrsGranpaws Anybody who's less than 2 generations removed from people whose only entertainment was "porch music" should feel this connection. My folks families both moved from the South 75 years ago, but they were country musicians (or "old time" music, before "country"), so I heard the old songs as I went to sleep for the years of my childhood, even though we were in California. I was later a hippy, but when I started hearing Gram Parsons, and EmmyLou and JD Crowe...man, right in the heart, and the music has been a lifelong blessing, though I think I may have missed disco completely. sry.
When I close my eyes I can hear my "Omaw" Johnson singing. Her voice so much like this pretty lady. When I was a kid there wasn't any air conditioning. In the summer evenings after supper dishes were washed and put up, everyone would sit on the front porch and either play or sing in the evening breeze until the air stopped moving and the mosquitoes came out. Bless you pretty lady.
It ain't lost, it's alive and well. Us young folks over in the mountains keep it alive. Heck, there's an old general store from the early 1900s by my house, about a 5 minute drive. It's no longer open, but every Friday members of the community come on out to it for 3 hours and bring guitars, banjos, fiddles and mandolins. We sing these old tunes, and new bluegrass ones. The young folks flatfoot/buckdance/clog, whatever ya wanna call it, there. I have old Hymn Books from the 1800s-1880s that I still sing hymns out of acapella out on my family's property, or when I'm taking a walk at work.
Never Ever - luckily there were people working for the Library of Congress that researched theses songs.... Folk music in England and Ireland and Scotland developed and the older forms were forgotten but in the Appalachians the old music was geographically isolated and didn't deviate as much from the more ancient songs... just spent some time on a porch with a young man with me playing guitar and he the banjo going through some traditional songs... hopefully more young people will be drawn to folk music and it's power to resonate with the human spirit... hopefully there's hope...
Loved the movie. This is where I first heard Iris De Ment and I fell in love with that voice of hers right away. That tune and the way she voices it just gives me shivers. It is so heartfelt and simple yet filled to the top with such emotion. Not everyone's cup of tea; I love it.
This was also my first exposure to Iris DeMent, and I became a lifelong fan. I was fortunate to see her in concert once. Merle Haggard described her as the best vocalist he'd ever heard.
@@minniemouska4320 I had never heard of her until I saw that film. She sat down in that chair, all dirty and unkempt, her husband brought out the scratchy old violin and out of her mouth came a song that just touched me way down. Instantly became a fan.
Great post. I'm from a place called Bunclody in County Wexford, in the south east of Ireland. There is a song called 'The Streams of Bunclody', the lyrics of which bear a striking resemblance to the above. However, our tune is close to an Irish air called 'The Lakes of Coolfin'. It is amazing how songs have a life of their own and how the same themes emerge in different guises all over the world. Thanks again.
This song probably changed very very little over the centuries, and alot of appalachian hill people immigrated here from Ireland, england and Scotland. Ive heard these ballads have been near perfectly preserved in our mountains.
Iris is actually singing this in real time, and Muse Watson is doing a fiddle pantomime using a brand new bow, which has never had any rosin applied. That makes the fiddle completely silent. It's fairly visible to a fiddler who knows what to look for, as the bow hair is shown in good detail. David Mansfield, the music director and writer/director's husband is playing off-camera while Iris sings, all in real time. That, and the difficulty of it, is discussed in Special Features on the DVD.
This music is absolutely amazing!! I know i have Celtic heritage and this music speaks to my soul like almost no other. I believe this is the case for many who have Celtic heritage. There is something special in the history of this music. We need to hold onto it and even understand the history further!
i remember seeing this movie the first time, and it was at this moment, when Iris sang this awesome traditional, that i really began to "get it." Wonderful.
my family is from sw virginia by way of the mountains and moved there from western nc about one hundred yrs ago. i grew up breathing this music. no one captures its spirit better than iris. she is a blessing. i and my daughter sang her "these hills" at my mom's funeral.
I've heard there was a time when everyone made music instead of just listening. It was more unheard of to not know how to sing or play an instrument than for it to be considered a talent. Maybe it had to do with not having anything to play it back on. When you can't just pull up a song you like, if you want to hear it you have to play it or find someone who can. Something about the necessity of being able to make music in order to hear it made people more musical. This movie represents that time and place.
Frottog as late as the 1900s, an educated person was expected to know another language such as French or Latin,be able to write beautiful handwriting,and play an instrument. It is amazing to me how many of the old Irish and Scottish folk songs came over here because someone always could play the fiddle and people used to sit on their porches in the evenings and sing together. Now people no longer socialize and pass on the songs and they are being lost. I wonder if the rise of technology has caused more social isolation.
I saw this movie for the first time yesterday, June 12, 2016 and I was blown away by this song and others in the move. Two thumb up here. I love Appalachian music.
Pretty Saro (4) I came to this country in seventeen-forty-nine, I saw many a true love, but I never saw mine. I looked all around me and found I was alone. And me a poor stranger, and a long way from home. Down in some lonesome valley, down in some lonesome place, Where the wild birds do whistle their notes to increase, I think of pretty Saro whose waist is so neat, And I know of no better pastime than to be with my sweet. I wish I were a poet and could write a fine hand, I would send my love a letter that she could understand. And I'd send it by a messenger where the waters do flow And think of pretty Saro wherever I go. Notice the 1800's date in the second version and how the folk process converted "waist is so neat" to "ways air so complete" or vice versa. Dorothy Scarborough in "A Song CAtcher in Southern Mountains, American Folk Songs of British Ancestry" (Columbia University press, 1937) includes two versions that she collected in 1930. One was from the Blue Ridge Mountains in Virginia, the other was collected in the Asheville, North Carolina area near the Smoky Mountains. She has a somewhat different take on the origins of the song as indicated by the book title and the following passage from the book: "Mrs. Stikeleather also sang it (i.e Pretty Saro) into my Dictaphone and contributed it to this collection. She told me that while the date 'eighteen-forty-nine' is used in some of the versions of the song, 'seventeen-forty-nine' is more probably correct, as that year witnessed considerable immigration to North Carolina from Ireland and Scotland, and this old English song was no doubt adapted to its new setting at that time" This is an interesting anecdote, and plausible too, but can't be considered strong evidence because there is no connection made to the purported English predecessor. Later Scarborough says that and a song assembled in the USA by recent English-speaking immigrants. Here is the text she collected in NC RR apr00
The actor is Muse Watson (NCIS), and the actual playing is done by David Mansfield, the music director. I assume Watson was using a brand new bow which had never been rosined, because that would make no sound when drawn across a string. David Mansfield said that this scene was done live, with him playing fiddle off-camera, while Iris was actually singing, rather than doing an audio track later in a studio, and mixing it in with the video in post-production.
I'm sure I have the Appalachian mountains on my track, some other life time that touches me deeply when I hear this kind of Music! I would so hate to lose it entirely. Love Iris, and loved that movie!
This music will live as long as there is a longing for home or love or belonging. The fiddle, the mandolin or the pipes make the music but the voice of the singer makes it soar. Here in ND it is not forgotten.
Lovely. Peggy Seeger has a lovely variant on RU-vid. I would listen to them all. I'm a city singer since the 1940's when ,with my child's voice at the time, I learned and sang one of the Pretty Saro variants. Now I teach and run a family singing group. Even being from the city, I have looked, found and learned much beautiful mountain music. Keep it alive even if you aren't a great singer.
I lived in Mt. Alto, PA for awhile, right in the Northern Appalachians, and met people who had lived there for generations. All kind and generous, for the most part. A few hell raisers.
This movie is great and so is this song. I love ballads. "Pretty Saro" and " Raglin Road" always work to put my niece and nephew to sleep when I sing to them. There is just something so great about these ballads that even after all these years they still evoke something in people. I especially love the fiddle music in this song.
Oh my stars...I have tried for years to think of thus movie title!!!! Thank you!! I could watch the movie everyday and still not get enough of that heartfelt music!!
My dads family came from Appalachia. My gran delivered mail on horseback, Dad walked 5 miles in the snow to a one room schoolhouse to get an education. Gran and great gran knew these songs and the heartbreak they sang about.
The actor Muse Watson (NCIS) is shown playing fiddle with Iris. He plays saxophone, so that helped with his looking a lot like he was playing fiddle, though a fiddler would spot in a couple of seconds that it was an Instrument Lip Sync. Actual playing was done off-camera by David Mansfield, the music director and husband of Maggie Greenwald, the writer/director and
One of our favorite scenes from this monumental film. How my heart pines for those mountains now destroyed for the coal they bore... Reminds me of my Daddy's Mama's side of the family and makes me proud.
@gjc82071 makes a good point. My teenage daughters who are definitely not into mountain music or bluegrass or country and western both enjoy the movie and are happy to sit with me for the replays !! This upload introduced me to the movie, but, I had to purchase a copy as the DVD was not available for rent - in Australia. So thanks for the upload, great movie and Iris is a wonderful singer.
I do love Iris Dements version if Pretty Saro When I first came to this country in 18 and 49 I saw many fair love-yers but never saw mine.... And there in her lily white arms, I'd lay there all night and watch thru the little winders for the dawning of day
My granddaddy used to beat a fiddle to death! My grandmother sounds just like Iris.. it’s like watching them. They have been gone for a long time now… that sound n voice are so specific.
I might not be from the Carolinas, or the south, etc., but (I am from P-Town OH.), I am proud of my roots, my grt. grandma came from poverty, raised during the depression, her mom was literally born in the cliffs of KY, talikng about literally pulling yourself up by your boot straps, very proud of my heritage, ...there is something beautiful about having simple kind of life, close to God and nature as they were in the movie, close enough you knew what plants were there and how to use them.
If you want to see a woman's true beauty...just look at Iris. With no makeup no nothing..she exudes Ultimate Beauty. And on top of that? Iris' music is simply Heaven Itself. Iris is one of our greatest Heroines of Music. Thank you Iris. Thank you and God bless you.
Pretty Saro When I first come to this country in Eighteen and Forty-nine I saw many fair lovers but I never saw mine I viewed it all around me, saw I was quite alone And me a poor stranger and a long way from home Well, my true love she won't have me and it's this I understand For she wants some free holder and I have no land I couldn't maintain her on silver and gold But all of the other fine things that my love's house could hold Fare thee well to ol' mother, fare thee well to my father too I'm going for to ramble this wide world all through And when I get weary, I'll sit down and cry And think of my Saro, pretty Saro, my bride Well, I wished I was a turtle dove Had wings and could fly Far away to my lover's lodgings Tonight I'd draw nigh And there in her lilywhite arms I'd lay there all night And watch through them little wind'ers For the dawning of day
Jack Levin in the actual album version there is an extra verse, stating as follows: Well my true love she won't have me, And it's this that I understand For she wants some free loader (a rich person) And I have no land! I couldn't maintain her, All silver and gold, And all of the other fine things that my loves house will hold
