DESCRIPTION:
Released in March 2007, "Waterloo, Tennessee" is Uncle Earl's 5th album, produced by Paul Jones (from Led Zeppelin, believe it or not). "My Epitaph" is its 6th track.

If you're wondering how this all-female band came up with its name -- it was, like most band names, a lark. They remembered some singers named "Earl" and combined that with a memory of Uncle Tupelo, and that was that.

"My Epitaph" is a pure American song, written by Appalachian singer-songwriter Ola Belle Reed (aka Ola Belle Campbell Reed), who was born to a large musical family -- she was one of 13 children -- in 1916, and lived till 2002, along the way writing several great American songs that will probably live forever. I can imagine how, a hundred or two years from now, this song will be considered as classic for us as "Amazing Grace" and "Johnny's Gone For A Soldier" are today -- or like "Carrickfergus" is to the Irish. (Any true Irishman, upon hearing "Carrickfergus" sung right, will either shed a tear or down a pint -- probably both. It's practically genetic.)

It's true that this song is unrelentingly downbeat, but I nevertheless find in its bare-bone lyrics and wailing melody a kind of comfort. (I know: weird.) I suppose that's because this song crystallizes, simply and beautifully, the universal nature of life -- tough, stuffed full, and altogether too short.

Btw, this song is also used in the 2013 movie "Cas and Dylan" (near the end, at ~1:22:30).

As usual, I'm putting this on YouTube because it's otherwise not available -- a shameful state I want to correct. I own none of the rights to this work, nor do I claim any, as they belong entirely and solely to the copyright holders.

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MY EPITAPH

When I go from this life, let me go in peace
Don’t want your marble at my head and feet
Don’t gather round me oh just to weep and moan
Where that I’m going I won’t be alone

Flowers you give, please give them today
Don’t waste their beauty on cold lifeless clay
One rose with love could do so much good
And I think all would give it if they just understood

Now God gives life freely, then he takes away
What we do for each other let us do it today
For we have no promise that tomorrow will come
Don’t sing my praises Lord after I'm gone

When life has departed it’s not me anymore
Just a form that has suffered, a still heart that was sore
For the soul that has blossomed, it don’t need you anymore
So let it go freely to God’s evermore