Rails of the Year: 'Hard Times Come Again No More'
Editor's Note: This article previously appeared in a dissimilar format as part of The Atlantic's Notes section, retired in 2021.
A reader, Rick Jones, writes:
This video of Stephen Foster's great song "Hard Times Come up Again No More" seems to necktie together some of Notes' recent themes. It's a cover (the song was written in 1856) by the Familia McGarrigle (including a teenage Rufus and Martha) and it speaks to coming troubles and the need for perseverance that Fallows has been evoking in his writing.
If y'all accept a version of "Difficult Times" that particularly resonates with yous and take a memory associated with it, please send us a annotation: hello@theatlantic.com. (The McGarrigle/Wainwright clan also did a version of Stephen Foster's sunnier "Better Times Are Coming.") Update from a reader who flags a rendition of "Hard Times" from Mavis Staples:
From another reader, Peter:
What a smashing song, unfortunately, it seems timeless. I beginning heard it in 1981, sung by the outstanding Chapel Loma string band The Cherry-red Clay Ramblers. Their wonderful harmony singing frames the song with a warmth that counterbalances the bleakness of the lyrics you tin here them hither.
Another reader recommends a version that isn't available on YouTube:
My favorite is somewhere in my library of Neb Frisell bootlegs, but it's something along these lines. I'm fascinated by songs like this that are but and so sometime and remain in the repertoire. For example, "St. James Infirmary" is based on "The Rake's Lament," an 18th century British naval song. It's also the parent of "Streets of Laredo," the Johnny Cash melody. That's nuts!
One more reader, Sydney:
Greetings from just south of Raleigh, NC, as I read all the news I missed last night because often, playing with babies beats knowing more details of terrorism. When I saw your mail on "Hard Times" I immediately thought of the Yo Yo Ma and James Taylor cover that I had on echo this time last year while waiting for morning time sickness to magically disappear in the second trimester of a twin pregnancy, but instead got more pains and swelling. I resigned myself to only focusing on seeking the good in life, that hard times would laissez passer.
Proud to say I've now got two happy good for you infant girls, one of whom wants to keep me visitor now. Keep up the dandy piece of work.
The covers go along arriving from long-time readers, namely Barbara:
It has been and so neat to see the McGarrigle thread spin into Stephen Foster country with "Difficult Times Come Again No More." I like sentimental songs and apparently have a high tolerance for desolation, specially if rhyming lines are involved. I thought the song's Wikipedia entry, describing it as a "parlor song," was a nice touch that avoided the judgement implicit in "sentimental," even if the sentence is right on target.
The song is one of my favorites from Foster, who is 1 of my favorite composers. I learned to play some of his songs on the piano from a tattered re-create of a collection of his work. I learned a lot of other folk songs and sentimental favorites from an even more tattered hardcover copy of the Fireside Book of Folk Songs I still have, although the book now begins halfway through the song "Cockles and Mussels" and ends partway through the alphabetize, with no hardcovers in sight. (I was able to get another copy of the volume, covers and all, when a family unit member passed away, but I still play from the spineless copy that opens flat and stays open up.)
I am not an accomplished pianist and I've grown increasingly rusty. Early in elementary school, I only progressed partway through John Thompson's Modern Grade for the Piano: The Second Course Book: Something New Every Lesson. The "something new" that killed my progress was syncopation, in the form of dotted eighth notes in a version of James A. Banal'southward "Conduct Me Back to Old Virginny." (I understood the mathematics just fine, just my mind had decided on a rhythm that seemed pleasing to my fingers, and no amount of repetition and no lack of a gilt star got me to play the song correctly. After weeks of intractable stubbornness on my part and the part of the just piano instructor in town, we parted means. I did take more lessons in high schoolhouse when the wife of a new music teacher at the central school offered them. I explained my history, and we started out lessons with Bach. It was more than successful, but I stopped taking lessons when I left for college.
Anyhow, I liked all the versions your readers provided; it was interesting to hear a range of interpretations. I similar Emmylou Harris'due south performance of "Hard Times Come Again No More." I don't know if the cut I listen to is online, only in this video from a concert, she says that "this is probably the oldest song in my repertoire."
The performance of "Difficult Times" I play well-nigh often is past Thomas Hampson, because I like to listen to the album in the car and am very fond of his "Beautiful Dreamer." (The anthology is American Dreamer: Songs of Stephen Foster, and performers include Jay Ungar on violin, Molly Mason on guitar, and David Alpher on piano.)
Unlike some other covers, Hampson'southward doesn't sound like he's actually been through difficult times. His functioning instead fits the Wikipedia description; I imagine he sings the song just as a admirer with a good voice would accept done years ago in some parlor, playing pianoforte with more finesse than I have and trying to impress the guests at a party, particularly the woman he has his eye on. The rendition is smooth, and if you enjoy Hampson's voice, you lot may non realize how atrocious some parts of the lyrics are. The chorus is what makes the song swell, non the verses.
Of all the versions, the Mavis Staples encompass is my new favorite.
Thank you everyone!
Hither'south a terminal update, from the reader who started this "Hard Times" series. Rick indicated in our email substitution that he was a long-time reader of The Dish, the blog I helped edit for seven years—three of which were at The Atlantic. If you ever followed the web log, Rick's retrospective here is poignant:
Well that post is having a pretty adept run! I knew of some other versions (eastward.g.Taylor/Ma), only many were new. The video I sent originally is not the all-time musical quality and it has a kind of awkward family Christmas card feel, which I idea fit the season besides. Glad I could contribute.
A "View From Your Window" I simply dug upwards from the Dish electronic mail athenaeum, taken by Rick in 2012 around 9pm in Sacramento
Information technology would be inaccurate to phone call me a Dish reader … Dish obsessive is more likely. I checked the site dozens of times a day, every day. About a year ago I made a list of all the wonderful things that The Dish introduced to me and I began to weep halfway through, finally stopping afterwards a folio full. I defy anyone to find me a site today with the depth, reach, humor, and intellectual backbone of The Dish. Where else could I discover Wislawa Szymborska AND Dina Martina, Frederick Seidel AND Robert Earl Keen AND Jack Gilbert, Rod Dreher AND Jennifer Michael Hecht? Go ahead, I'll look for the answer.
I tin still recall exactly where and when I read the postal service from Andrew that yous all were closing shop: Jan 28, 2015, 10AM PST, at a very Dishy location: Sacramento Convention Heart, men's bathroom in the northwest corner, first stall in. (Yes I was alone. Still oversharing, I know, but in the best Sully tradition). Reading that post felt similar getting the news that a good friend was very ill.
I came to The Dish from an unlikely source: Kendall Harmon, who is the Canon Theologian of the Anglican diocese of South Carolina, and a robust opponent of gay wedlock. In 2003, my Episcopal parish was in the midst of tearing itself autonomously after Gene Robinson's ordination and, bewildered, I was seeking dialogue and enlightenment. Kendall had a link to Andrew on his web log coil. Through those years of struggle in the church, Andrew was a brilliant low-cal of courage, pity, insight and humor. I was finally received into the Catholic church on Easter Saturday 2006, and some of my discernment was informed by the idea that a church that could nourish Andrew Sullivan was also a home for me.
The Dish was the greatest experience I had on the web and i of the greatest intellectual adventures of my life. As one of the essential parts in that, thanks from the bottom of my center. If you ever run across Andrew, Patrick, and the residuum of the gang, let them know how much the blog meant to me. And should such a project ever be attempted again, please know that you have my intellectual, emotional, and financial back up.
Thanks for listening, and take a blessed Christmas and Happy New year's day.
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