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Gravedigging Blues

by K. Edward Smith

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about

"Gravedigging Blues" was written as part of my year-long songwriting challenge. Starting in June of 2019, I began writing and releasing new songs every three weeks for the next year.

This song was heavily influenced by the folk song collections of Alan Lomax. When I started writing this one, I had been reading the book "Songcatchers" by Grateful Dead drummer Mickey Hart. In there he talks about his fascination with the early field work recordings of ethnomusicologists and anthropologists. These were people who would go out to different small communities of people and record their music, and "Songcatchers" is a collection of the early history of this type of field work.

Alan Lomax is probably of the more famous of these awesome weirdos, traveling around America with old tape machines in the back of his car, finding blues guitarists, folk singers, small religious communities, etc. and capturing their songs on tape for archival. I had been digging on the recordings he made of prison work songs from the late 40s, especially how minimal of the songs were (all the arrangements were just voices and the percussive hits from the tools the singers were working with).

Gravedigging Blues is written around that style of work song. Keeping the arrangement minimal and open, to just voices, a banjo, and a shovel for percussion. I wanted to create a slightly haunting and open soundscape, so I also experimented with using wind and glass bottles to get some cool effects that I mixed in low under the rest of the arrangement. If you're into folk style music with dark overtones, this one's for you!

lyrics

the wind howls like broken glass
I'm riding my black horse to the edge of town
rusty gates left open to the world
maybe today someone will sing along

I'd like to be out of work
but I know someone's got to do it

these new graves won't fill themselves

old St. Anthony is lighting his fires
trying to help us stay warm at night
his black-winged raves are bringing us bread
feeding us when the ground is a hand of ice

I'd like to be out of work
but I know someone's got to do

these new graves won't fill themselves

some things are better left buried underground
I think we all know that
but we're busy making beds for others to sleep in
the silver's been sold and the lots have been cast

I'd like to be out of work but I know someone's got to do it

these new graves won't fill themselves

credits

released June 12, 2020
Written, recorded and produced by K. Edward Smith at Secondhand Studios in Fort Wayne, Indiana.

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K. Edward Smith Fort Wayne, Indiana

Independent, honest, and human, Kyle “K. Edward” Smith is a heavy metal drummer-turned-folk songwriter whose writing blends the down-to-earth relatability of indie and folk songs with ideas from the musical margins, resulting in a mix of alt-Americana sounds all his own. ... more

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