After I did She Lets Me In, my friend Barton said "That's great, but that's my least favorite Big Smith song. Could you do something else?"
Picky, picky picky. So I did Willow Garden.
They seem to do it differently than any version of Willow Garden I can find on the net. Art Garfunkel does it mostly with G and Em, and it sounds wrong when I play those along with the recording. There are a few other versions that even seem to have different intervals.
If you have a second instrument (say, a guitar, banjo, or mandolin), there's a lot of pickin' between lines. It seems to usually be on the notes of whatever chord that line ended with.
Also, note that there are lines where the chords spell out DEAD. Surely that's some kind of music major joke.
Willow Garden
Big Smith version
A D E A
Down in a willow garden
D A E
where me and my love did meet
A D E A
was there we sat a courtin',
A E A
my love fell off to sleep
D E A D
I had me a bottle of burgundy wine
A D E
Which my true love did not know
A D E A
And there I poisoned that dear little girl
A E A
Down on the banks below
A D E A
I drew a saber through her,
D A E
It was a bloody sight
A D E A
I threw her in the river,
A E A
It was a terrible night
D E A D
My father often told me
A D E
That money would set me free
A D E A
If I would murder that dear little girl
A E A
Whose name was Rose Connelly.
A D E A
And now he sits at his cabin door,
D A E
Wiping his tear stained eyes,
A D E A
Mournin for his only son
A E A
Upon the scaffold high.
D E A D
My race is run beneath the sun,
A D E
And hell is waiting for me
A D E A
For I did murder that dear little girl
A E A
Whose name was Rose Connelly.
Update: This same chord progression also works pretty well for Blowin in the Wind. The song, not the activity.
