One of the great things about the music we all love is that there is so much room for interpretation. Any good artist can take a tune people have heard many times before and put their own spin on it. As a listener, I’m often wedded to the first version I hear of a tune I like. It’s only natural to want to hold onto the moments of joy you experienced when you first heard a classic tune done well. But when a tune is done well one way, that doesn’t necessarily mean it can’t be done a totally different way to very good effect.
The way we listen to music has changed drastically over the years since recorded music came onto the scene. People went from exclusively live music to 78s to LPs to 8 tracks to cassettes to CDs to digital downloads. Now a lot of people just stream the music they want over the internet. You can use an app like Shazaam to identify any tune you’re interested in and search for stuff like that. You can also use the internet to search for new versions of any tune you might be interested in.
That’s exactly what I did recently when I started to listen again to the tune Little Bessie. I had found a CD in my car which I had never listened to. Strangely enough, I didn’t even know how it got there. I may have bought it previously and forgot, or some friend might have loaned it to me because I liked the artists. It doesn’t matter. What matters is that a tune I had heard many years ago was on it and the brand new version sounded fresh and interesting. So today, I thought I might share some of the various versions of this song I have listened to recently. They’re all different and they all add a richness to the knowledge of the tune.
The first version of Little Bessie I ever heard was by the Country Gentlemen. For those of you who are not familiar with the song it’s a song about a little girl who dies in her mother’s arms:
Hug me closer, Mother closer
Put your arms around me tight
For I’m cold in here, dear mother
And I feel so strange tonight
Something hurts me here, dear mother
Like a stone upon my breast
And I wonder mother wonder
Why it is I cannot rest
I’ll always love that first version I heard of Little Bessie. It’s from the Country Gentlemen’s Live in Japan CD. But after hearing the alternative version I had found in my car, I decided to use the internet and find more versions. One of the first versions that interested me was by Ralph Stanley. It’s very different. The Stanley’s sing “closer” both times as quarter notes whereas the Country Gentlemen sing a dotted quarter note for the first “closer”. And instead of singing “I feel so strange tonight”, the Stanleys sing “I feel so strong tonight”.
When I first heard the Stanley’s version, I thought I had mis-heard those lyrics but then I listened to a Ricky Skaggs a cappella version and, as one might expect from such a Stanley’s protege, he sings exactly the same lyrics. The original tune comes from about 1870 (lyrics by R.S.Crandall and arrangement by W.T. Porter). As you’ll see later, both of these variations are present in the original lyrics but they come at different parts of the story.
There is an abundance of lyrics available for this particular tune. I like to sing Molly and Tenbrooks at a big jam because it has so many lyrics and if you can remember only most of them, everybody gets a solo. But I’ve seen more printed lyric verses for Little Bessie than just about any other tune I’ve come across, including John Henry. I’ll give you all the lyrics I know for this tune but you might want to skip around some if you have a train to catch.
All the day as you were working
And I lay upon my bed
I was trying to be patient
And to think of what you said
How the King, Blessed Jesus
Loves his lambs to watch and keep
Oh, I wish He would come and take me
In his arms that I might sleep
Just before the lamps were lighted
Just before the children came
While the room was very quiet
I heard someone call my name
Most versions you hear omit the middle verse of the above three, The Blue Sky Boy’s 1938 is the model for most of the versions that followed, and they also omit the next five verses.
All at once a window opened
On a field of lambs and sheep
Some out in a brook were drinking
Some were lying fast asleep
In a moment I was looking
On a world so bright and fair
Which was filled with little children
And they seemed so happy there
They were singing, oh so sweetly
Sweetest songs I ever heard
They were singing sweeter, Mother
Than our own dear little birds
But I could not see the savior
Though I strained my eyes to see
And I wonder if He saw me
Would He speak to such as me
All at once a window opened
One so bright upon me smiled
And I knew it must be Jesus
When He said come here, my child
One of my favorite versions of this tune comes from the singing of Peter Ostroushko, accompanied by Norman Blake. The chord structure and tempo are a little different, more of a dirge. Ostroushko includes the last of the five stanzas above, which most performances skip and he alters some of the other lyrics a bit for dramatic purposes. For example, the line “just before the children came”. Ostroushko sings “just before the darkness came”.
Come up here, my little Bessie
Come up here and live with me
Where little children never suffer
Through the long eternity
Though I thought of all you told me
Of the bright and happy land
I was going when you called me
When you came and kissed my hand
And at first I felt so sorry
You had called and I would go
Oh, to sleep and never suffer
Mother, don’t be crying so
Now comes the alternative extra stanza that the Stanley Brothers and Ricky Skaggs place earlier:
Hug me close dear Mother closer
Put your arms around me tight
Oh how much I love you mother
And I feel so strong tonight
Now “feel so strong tonight” makes sense in the context of the full version. The little girl has been comforted in the image her mother has created and she is able to face death bravely.
And her mother pressed her closer
To her own dear burdened breast
On the heart so near its breaking
Lay the heart so near its rest
At the solemn hour of midnight
In the darkness calm and deep
Lying on her mother’s bosom
Little Bessie fell asleep
Many versions end with this last line but the Country Gentlemen add another one which I think is very appropriate given that they skip a number of the original story telling verses:
Now up yonder past the portals
That are shining very far
Little Bessie now is tended
By her savior’s love and care
Surfing the internet for alternative versions of a tune you like can turn up a lot of interesting ideas that add to the appreciation of a song you thought you already knew. Even amateur You Tube versions can be worthwhile to listen to. Let me warn you though, you might hear a Pandora version that is just too good to not own the CD or digital download. Here are some of the versions of Little Bessie you might enjoy listening to:
Country Gentlemen: Live in Japan and The Award Winning Country Gentlemen
Stanley Brothers: Old Country Church
Blue Sky Boys: (1938 recording)
Norman Blake and Peter Ostroushko: Meeting on Southern Soil
Norman Blake and Tut Taylor: Flat Pickin in the Kitchen
Ricky Skaggs: Ancient Tones
J.D.Crowe: Bluegrass Holiday
Red, White and Blue (Grass): Very Popular
Roscoe Holcomb: The High Lonesome Sound
