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Also known as ‘Black Girl’ and ‘Where Did You Sleep Last Night’, this song is often credited to Huddie Ledbetter, a.k.a. Lead Belly (1888-1949), but in fact it dates back to at least the 1870s, and is probably Southern Appalachian in origin. Cecil Sharp collected it from a Miss Lizzie Abner in Oneida, Kentucky, on 18 August, 1917, under the name ‘Black Girl’ and comprising just four lines:

Black girl, black girl, don’t lie to me
Where did you stay last night?
I stayed in the pines where the sun never shines
And shivered when the cold wind blows

In Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folksong (2000), Norm and David Cohen write:

Two years later, Newman I. White obtained four lines that a student of his had heard sung by a black railroad work gang in Buncombe County, North Carolina:

The longest train I ever saw
Was on the Seaboard Air Line,
The engin pas’ at a ha’ pas’ one,
And the caboose went pas’ at nine.

In 1921-22, Frank C. Brown obtained a long text from Parl Webb of Pineola, Avery County, North Carolina, that included both the “in the pines” couplet and the “longest train” couplet ... during the years 1921-22, Brown did obtain recordings of “In The Pines” – the earliest ones to be made.

I first heard ‘In The Pines’ being sung by Sissy Spacek in the 1980 Loretta Lynn biopic Coal Miner’s Daughter. She only sings a couple of lines of it, but I couldn’t get them out of my head. A year or two later, I bought a secondhand LP by Jack Tottle called Back Road Mandolin, and that’s where I got my lyrics for ‘In The Pines’, including the substitution of “Little girl” for the more usual “Black girl”.

Driving home at the end of the day on which I recorded the song for this album, I switched on the car radio just in time to hear Nirvana’s version being played. Spooky!

lyrics

The longest train I ever saw
Came down that Georgia line
The engine passed at six o’clock
And the cab passed by at nine

Chorus:
In the pines, in the pines
Where the sun never shines
And we shiver when the cold winds blow
Ooh ...

I asked the captain for the time of day
He said he throwed his watch away
It’s a long steel rail and a short cross tie
I’m on my way back home

(Chorus)

Little girl, little girl, where’d you stay last night
Not even your mother knows
Well I stayed in the pines where the sun never shines
And we shiver when the cold winds blow

(Chorus)

credits

from I Won​’​t Go Home ’Til Morning, released October 28, 2008
Trad arr. S. McQuaid/G. O’Beirne
Sarah – vocals, guitar
Gerry O’Beirne – ukelele, National Steel slide guitar
Trevor Hutchinson – double bass

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Sarah McQuaid Penzance, UK

“One of the most instantly recognisable voices in current music … Shades of Joni Mitchell in a jam with Karen Carpenter and Lana Del Rey.” —Neil March, Trust The Doc

“Captivating, unorthodox songwriting … layered satin vocals ... enthralling, harrowing arrangements … a gateway into a true innovator’s soul.” —PopMatters

See sarahmcquaid.com/about for more info. ... more

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