DESCRIPTION:
Hear 'Pretty Polly' on Davey Bob's album Attic Songs, out now on CDBaby & iTunes:
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/daveybobramsey
https://itunes.apple.com/au/album/attic-songs/id760344007

This is archetypal murder ballad. What makes it disturbing is the utter senselessness of the act, devoid of any apparent motive. I take the song to be an elegant metaphor for our tendency to fail to see the inherent mystery and beauty of life, for allowing the 'thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to' to veil the full dynamic range of reality. Whenever we allow mental agitation or erroneous attitudes to cloud the clarity of our vision we kill Pretty Polly. We do it all the time. In older versions of the ballad Polly is murdered because she has become pregnant, although that detail is usually omitted from later versions.

I have been playing this song for about twenty years. I first encountered it in a book in the Auchmuty Library at the University of Newcastle in the early 1990s. I was enamoured of the simplicity of it; even an untrained musician such as I could work out the melody from the written score. I can't remember details about the book, but the first version I heard (on a CD borrowed from the Newcastle City Library) was a field recording performed by E. C. Ball, recorded by Alan Lomax (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4pIW_2G6RBg). To this day my version is most influenced by this one, although I loved catching up with the 1927 banjo version by B. F. Shelton which was the likely model for Ball's guitar version (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z05ITd_gVsg ).

For a long time I played the song on guitar, adapting the riff into an eastern scale which added appropriate moodiness and drama to the song (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dspaH4E6o3k). Since taking up the banjo last year I have enjoyed the more traditional sounds gained from playing the song in sawmill tuning (gDGCD) on my vintage Clifford Essex C. E. Special.

A recording of this song is one of 14 tracks on my new album Attic Songs, now available from:
-CD Baby http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/daveybobramsey
-iTunes

Pretty Polly - lyrics

Polly pretty Polly come go along with me
Polly pretty Polly come go along with me
Before we get married some pleasure to see

She got up behind him & away they did go
She got up behind him & away they did go
Over the hills & the valleys so low

They went up a little further & what did they spy
They went up a little further & what did they spy
A newly dug grave & a spade lying by

Why pretty Polly your face has gone quite white
& I see by your look that you've guessed it just right
I've been digging your grave the best part of last night

She threw her arms all 'round him & suffering no fear
She threw her arms all 'round him & suffering no fear
Cried how can you kill this girl who loves you so dear?

He stabbed her through the heart, her heart's blood it did flow
He stabbed her through the heart, her heart's blood it did flow
& into the grave pretty Polly did go

He threw some dirt over her & turned to go home
He threw some dirt over her & turned to go home
Nothing behind him but the dead girl to mourn

Kind ladies & kind gentlemen I'll bid you farewell
Kind ladies & kind gentlemen I'll bid you farewell
For killing pretty Polly's going to send my soul to hell