Track of the Year: 'Hard Times Come Again No More'
Editor'southward Note: This article previously appeared in a different format equally part of The Atlantic's Notes section, retired in 2021.
A reader, Rick Jones, writes:
This video of Stephen Foster's smashing song "Hard Times Come up Again No More" seems to tie together some of Notes' contempo themes. It's a cover (the vocal was written in 1856) by the Familia McGarrigle (including a teenage Rufus and Martha) and information technology speaks to coming troubles and the need for perseverance that Fallows has been evoking in his writing.
If you take a version of "Hard Times" that peculiarly resonates with you and have a memory associated with it, please send usa 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 "Difficult Times" from Mavis Staples:
From another reader, Peter:
What a great vocal, unfortunately, it seems timeless. I first heard it in 1981, sung past the outstanding Chapel Hill string ring The Red Clay Ramblers. Their wonderful harmony singing frames the song with a warmth that counterbalances the bleakness of the lyrics you tin can hither them here.
Another reader recommends a version that isn't available on YouTube:
My favorite is somewhere in my library of Beak Frisell bootlegs, but it'southward something along these lines. I'm fascinated by songs similar this that are just and so quondam and remain in the repertoire. For example, "St. James Infirmary" is based on "The Rake'south Lament," an 18th century British naval vocal. It's also the parent of "Streets of Laredo," the Johnny Cash tune. 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 frequently, playing with babies beats knowing more details of terrorism. When I saw your mail service on "Difficult Times" I immediately thought of the Yo Yo Ma and James Taylor embrace that I had on repeat this time last year while waiting for morning sickness to magically disappear in the second trimester of a twin pregnancy, but instead got more than pains and swelling. I resigned myself to only focusing on seeking the good in life, that hard times would pass.
Proud to say I've now got two happy healthy baby girls, one of whom wants to go along me company now. Proceed up the great work.
The covers keep arriving from long-time readers, namely Barbara:
It has been so great to see the McGarrigle thread spin into Stephen Foster land with "Difficult Times Come Again No More." I like sentimental songs and plainly take a high tolerance for desolation, peculiarly if rhyming lines are involved. I thought the vocal's Wikipedia entry, describing it equally a "parlor song," was a nice affect that avoided the judgement implicit in "sentimental," even if the judgement is right on target.
The song is 1 of my favorites from Foster, who is i of my favorite composers. I learned to play some of his songs on the piano from a tattered copy of a collection of his work. I learned a lot of other folk songs and sentimental favorites from an even more tattered hardcover re-create 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 index, with no hardcovers in sight. (I was able to get another copy of the book, covers and all, when a family member passed away, merely I still play from the spineless copy that opens flat and stays open.)
I am non an accomplished pianist and I've grown increasingly rusty. Early on in elementary schoolhouse, I only progressed partway through John Thompson's Modern Course for the Piano: The 2d Class 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's "Carry Me Back to Erstwhile Virginny." (I understood the mathematics simply fine, but my heed had decided on a rhythm that seemed pleasing to my fingers, and no corporeality of repetition and no lack of a gold star got me to play the vocal correctly. After weeks of intractable stubbornness on my part and the part of the only pianoforte teacher in town, we parted ways. I did take more lessons in high school when the wife of a new music teacher at the central schoolhouse 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 higher.
Anyway, I liked all the versions your readers provided; it was interesting to hear a range of interpretations. I similar Emmylou Harris's performance of "Difficult Times Come Again No More." I don't know if the cut I listen to is online, merely in this video from a concert, she says that "this is probably the oldest vocal in my repertoire."
The operation of "Difficult Times" I play most oftentimes is by Thomas Hampson, because I like to listen to the anthology in the automobile and am very fond of his "Beautiful Dreamer." (The album 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'due south doesn't sound like he's actually been through difficult times. His performance instead fits the Wikipedia description; I imagine he sings the vocal only as a admirer with a skillful vocalization would accept done years ago in some parlor, playing pianoforte with more finesse than I take 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 may not realize how awful some parts of the lyrics are. The chorus is what makes the song peachy, not the verses.
Of all the versions, the Mavis Staples cover is my new favorite.
Thanks anybody!
Here'south a final update, from the reader who started this "Difficult Times" serial. Rick indicated in our email exchange that he was a long-fourth dimension reader of The Dish, the blog I helped edit for seven years—three of which were at The Atlantic. If y'all always followed the blog, Rick's retrospective here is poignant:
Well that post is having a pretty good run! I knew of some other versions (e.k.Taylor/Ma), but many were new. The video I sent originally is not the all-time musical quality and it has a kind of bad-mannered family Christmas menu feel, which I thought fit the season as well. Glad I could contribute.
A "View From Your Window" I just dug up from the Dish email archives, taken past Rick in 2012 around 9pm in Sacramento
Information technology would be inaccurate to call me a Dish reader … Dish obsessive is more likely. I checked the site dozens of times a day, every twenty-four hour period. Virtually a year ago I made a list of all the wonderful things that The Dish introduced to me and I began to cry halfway through, finally stopping after a page total. I defy anyone to find me a site today with the depth, reach, humor, and intellectual courage of The Dish. Where else could I notice Wislawa Szymborska AND Dina Martina, Frederick Seidel AND Robert Earl Bang-up AND Jack Gilbert, Rod Dreher AND Jennifer Michael Hecht? Go alee, I'll wait for the respond.
I tin still call up exactly where and when I read the mail service from Andrew that yous all were closing store: Jan 28, 2015, 10AM PST, at a very Dishy location: Sacramento Convention Eye, men's bathroom in the northwest corner, first stall in. (Yes I was lone. Still oversharing, I know, but in the best Sully tradition). Reading that mail service 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 marriage. In 2003, my Episcopal parish was in the midst of tearing itself apart after Gene Robinson'southward ordination and, bewildered, I was seeking dialogue and enlightenment. Kendall had a link to Andrew on his blog whorl. Through those years of struggle in the church, Andrew was a bright light 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 thought that a church building that could attend Andrew Sullivan was too a home for me.
The Dish was the greatest experience I had on the spider web and one of the greatest intellectual adventures of my life. As i of the essential parts in that, thanks from the bottom of my middle. If yous always see Andrew, Patrick, and the residual of the gang, permit them know how much the blog meant to me. And should such a project ever be attempted again, delight know that yous accept my intellectual, emotional, and financial support.
Thanks for listening, and have a blest Christmas and Happy New year's day.
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