Pretty Polly, The Gosport Tragedy or The Cruel Ships Carpenter is a traditional English-language folk song found in the British Isles, Canada and the Appalachian region of North America, among other places. The song is a murder ballad, telling of a young woman lured into the forest where she is killed and buried in a shallow grave. Many variants of the story have the villain as a ships carpenter who promises to marry Polly but murders her when she becomes pregnant. When he goes back to sea, he is haunted by her ghost, confesses to the murder, goes mad and dies. American versions of the ballad, such as those of B.F. Shelton and Dock Boggs, tend to begin in the first person (I courted Pretty Polly...) and switch to the third person for the murder (he stabbed her to the heart). Judy Collins 1968 recording featured alternating verses switching back and forth between Polly and Willies perspectives. American versions also tend to omit the reason for killing Pretty Polly and Willies subsequent madness or haunting by Pollys ghost. The ballad is likely the musical basis for Ballad of Hollis Brown by Bob Dylan who played Pretty Polly himself in his early years. Rock writer Greil Marcus theorises that Nirvanas Polly is a descendant of Pretty Polly. Woody Guthrie used the tune of Pretty Polly for Pastures of Plenty. Here, Vandaveer performs a new video of “Pretty Polly,” from their album, Oh, Willie.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Apr 2014 07:58:08 +0000
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