December 21. The winter solstice is upon us, and without realizing it (but not wanting to miss out on the symbolism) I'm writing this post in the last hour of daylight. By the time I finish, it will be dark, and the next time the sun rises, we'll be on our way back toward summer. For all the repetitions of "Jesus is the reason for the season," that saying is utterly false. Before you stone me to death, hear me out. Most people know that Christmas is celebrated near the solstice to coincide with pagan traditions, specifically the Roman festival of Saturnalia, making the conversion from one holiday to the other an easy process for new converts. So if you want to be a realist about it, Jesus is merely the reason for the religious significance; the season, and its choosing, is entirely about the solstice. This has little to do with today's song of choice, except that I picked this one for its dark sound and minor key, reminding me of the darkness of the solstice. In fact, though a Celtic tune might have been more befitting today, "I Wonder As I Wander" is an Appalachian original.
If you can, watch that video in full screen. The imagery used in the background was fittingly filmed in southern Appalachia, the birthplace of the song in question. For all its ancient-sounding eeriness, the carol's earliest history begins in 1933 in the town of Murphy, NC. For those who don't like using Google maps, Murphy is about as far south and west as you can go in the state of North Carolina, and it's in an area known for being a hotbed of balladry and original Appalachian folk music. The story behind "I Wonder As I Wander" starts with a revivalist meeting in Murphy in mid-July of 1933. Most of the revivalists in attendance were extremely poor and, having been squatting in the town square for over a week, were about to be evicted by the police. A preacher by the name of Morgan and his wife asked to hold one last meeting to panhandle enough gas money to drive out of Murphy. When the police acquiesced, Morgan's daughter, Annie Morgan, sang the first lines of an old ballad that she had been taught. Luckily for her, a folklorist named John Jacob Niles was attending the revival meetings collecting and recording Appalachian ballads as he did for a living. He described seeing Annie singing in the square, wearing clothes that were
"...unbelievably dirty and ragged, and she, too was unwashed. Her ash-blonde hair hung down in long skeins... But, best of all, she was beautiful, and in her untutored way, she could sing. She smiled as she sang, smiled rather sadly, and sang only a single line of a song."
Niles, taken with the haunting melody, offered her a quarter if she would repeat what she had just sung. She repeated her song seven more times, each for another quarter, and Niles recorded what he could in his notebook in his own musical shorthand until he ran out of quarters to give her. He left Murphy with "Three lines of verse, a garbled fragment of melodic material--and a magnificent idea." Niles extended what wrote down that day to a full melody and three verses, taking credit for all but the original lines he heard young Annie sing.
Well done, Johnny.
Who's to say how far back the ballad might trace its roots? It's become popular far beyond Appalachia, partially thanks to John Niles' involvement in the folk revival of the 50's and 60's. Unlike many other Appalachian ballads, there is no paralleling version from medieval England that was found over there. Then again, we're working with bits and pieces, so who knows how much might have been lost in translation. The parts we do have seem to mirror the nomadic lifestyle led by Annie Morgan and her family: wandering from place to place with nothing at all, but remembering that Jesus' family did much the same thing before and immediately after he was born. Maybe their hardship and poverty is vindicated, then, in being like him-- that seems to be the message of the lyrics:
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
How Jesus the Savior did come for to die
For poor on'ry people like you and I;
I wonder as I wander out under the sky
When Mary birthed Jesus 'twas in a cow's stall
With wise men and shepherds and farmers and all
But high from God's heaven a star's light did fall
And the promise of ages it then did recall
I'll admit to being pretty infatuated with the dark, haunting melody of this one. Whether it's more Niles' invention or a traditional tune, it seems to fit the bill for the darkest day of the year. It feels like what wandering in the woods on a still winter's night feels like. And I have my own connection with Murphy, NC, particularly it's police department. No, I was never arrested there, but last time I was near Murphy it was snowy, cold, and windy, but far from the solstice. It was March 25, 2014, and I had just crossed the first state line on my thru-hike of the Appalachian Trail. Another thru hiker, a retired Coast Guardsman, in fact, had broken his ankle and hobbled his way to Muskrat Creek shelter, where Tim and I were staying the night.
Muskrat Creek shelter, the following morning
His fellow hikers had already gotten a call out to Clay County emergency services in Murphy, and they sent up their EMT's, a police officer... and Claw Man. Claw Man is a longer story, but suffice it to say they got the wounded hiker out of there, leaving us to weather the coldest night I'd spend on the AT. But I'll never forget what the mountains looked like that night, under that crystal clear sky after the snow had blown through. If "I Wonder As I Wander" turned out to be inspired by the southern Appalachians in wintertime, I wouldn't be the least bit surprised.
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