I was raised with Hank Williams music playing in the background constantly. If it wasn’t his records, it was my father playing his guitar and singing the same songs. I’m sure I know by heart almost every song Hank Williams ever performed. One song I learned early in my musical life was “Alone and Forsaken.” I’ve always been a fan of Neko Case and after I read her interview by Greil Marcus in the Oxford American, I purchased her version of Hank’s song from iTunes. Marcus says of Case, “[S]he walks walks out of the rain that falls over the music as if she’s anyone’s bad conscience personified. With her own acoustic and electric guitars counting off the cadence, she seems to stand a few steps back from the curling melody, making it slow itself to accomodate her; deep in the background, you can hear thunder. Williams has given up, the life beaten out of him when he sings “Alone and Forsaken by fate and by man,” your soul can curdle, knowing that on one can reach this person, that no one can help him, that nothing will ever be better. Case sings the line with shock, indignation, full-throated, she moves through the song with a building defiance.”
Here are the lyrics to Hank’s famous song.
Alone And Forsaken by Hank Williams
We met in the springtime
When blossoms unfold
The pastures were green and
Meadows were gold
Our love was in flower as summer grew on
A love like the leaves has withered and gone
The roses have faded
There’s frost at my door
The birds in the morning don’t sing anymore
The grass in the valley has started to die
Out in the darkness the whippets will cry
Alone and forsaken
Oh lord if you hear me then hold to my hand
Oh please understand
Where has she gone to, oh where can she be
She may have forsaken some other like me
She promised to honor, to love and obey
Each vow was a plaything that she threw away
The darkness is falling
The sky has turned gray
A hound in the distance is starting to bay
I wonder, I wonder what she’s thinking of
Forsaken, forgotten without any love
Alone and forsaken
By Fate and by man
Oh lord if you hear me then hold to my hand
Oh please understand
Oh please understand
[ I found the Alone And Forsaken Lyrics on http://www.lyricsmania.com/ ]