In my many years of travel, I’ve often marveled at the relationship between scenery and music; a location’s potential to boost the impact of a song…and vice versa (as I wrote about here). I witnessed that effect in action yet again on my most recent road trip.
Back in October, as I camped in an exquisitely lonely spot in New Mexico, a song came up in rotation that hit me pretty hard, no doubt amplified by my surroundings. That song was the original 1959 Lefty Frizzell recording of “The Long Black Veil.”
She walks these hills in a long black veil
She visits my grave when the night winds wail
Nobody knows
Nobody sees
Nobody knows but me
(If you don’t see a video above, follow this link to my YouTube channel.)
Sitting there alone in the falling dark, it was easy to get lost in those lyrics and the cry of the steel guitar. And as I roamed from camp to camp across the mesas and canyons of New Mexico and Colorado that week, I kept coming back to this hauntingly sad song. It’s certainly a tune that stays with you.
I have a fondness for “story songs,” especially vintage Country & Western ballads, and there are several in my music library. Not surprisingly, these songs work so well when played under the big skies of the American West.
Click the photo below to hear Lefty sing “The Long Black Veil” (YouTube).
Riding with Carl 