Last month's offering, The Homespun Dress, set me to thinking of my favorite Civil-War-era song about clothing. This one was written by J.H. McNaughton, a member of the then-new songwriting profession.1 The Carter Family recorded it for Victor in 1934, and the best way to learn it is to buy the Rounder CD 1072, The Carter Family Last Sessions. A.P. Carter, desperate for new material for his burdensome Victor recording contract, scoured the Appalachians for songs, becoming the first non-academic folk music collector, or at least the first one with a profit motive. He picked this one up somewhere, perhaps as a "ballet" (a written-down song, as opposed to one that you had to memorize from someone else's performance). Given the orientation towards the Northern (Blue) side, the source may not have been Carter's home state of Virginia, but -- and this is a puzzlement about the Civil War -- music didn't always correspond with political belief. Sam and Kirk McGee, for example, staunch sons of Dixie, recorded a wondrous Kingdom Coming, complete with the verses about the cowardly retreat of "Ol' Massa." Kirk later regretted it, saying that it had been their agent's idea, but the recording outlives him. As an alternate possibility, the Carters or their informant may have made a subtle change to Coat of Blue. The third line of the first verse implies the Spanish-American war, where all American soldiers wore blue. In the original composed song, the words were "famished brave."
I once ran across this song in an 1890s sheet music collection in an antique store, but I didn't buy it because it was the only song in the contents that I found interesting. I now wish I had a way to compare the original melody with the Carter version, which uses the Darling Nelly Gray tune (or Little Old Log Cabin In The Lane -- your choice) for the verse, but an unusual one for the chorus. Any recorded version I've heard is traceable to the Carters.
If you own a guitar, buy a thumb pick and the above-mentioned CD
so you can learn how to pick the melody on the bass strings. They
used C-fingering, capoed up five frets to F. With capo flexibility
in mind, I transcribed it in C, which is a little low for many
singers. The 2/4 time was also used with the Carter patented thumb
note-plus-brush guitar pattern in mind. When the Carters revived
this song, it was about seventy years old. That was sixty-four
years ago -- the wheel of fortune is in its spin cycle, and it's
almost time for this one to be popular again. Learn it, and be the
first one on your block with a blockbuster!
1. He's not widely remembered; I found only one World Wide Web reference to another song of his -- I guess Web archivists aren't very far into nineteenth century popular music composers.
My brave boy sleeps in his faded coat of blue,
In a lonely grave unknown lies the heart that beat so true;
He sank faint and hungry among the Spanish brave,
And they laid him sad and lonely within his nameless grave.
CHORUS:
No more the bugle calls the weary one,
Rest, noble spirits, in their graves unknown;
For we'll find you and know you among the good and true,
Where a robe of white is given for a faded coat of blue.
He cried, "Give me water and just a little crumb,
And my mother, she will bless you through all the years to come;
And tell my sweet sister, so gentle, good and true,
That I'll meet her up in heaven in my faded coat of blue."
No dear one was nigh him, to close his mild blue eyes,
No gentle voice was by him, to give him sweet replies;
No stone marks the lonely sod o'er the lad so brave and true,
In a lonely grave he's sleeping in his faded coat of blue.
I've only seen one printing of this song, in Lois Hill's Poems and Songs of the Civil War. It gives only the first two verses and chorus, in a slightly different form:
My brave lad he sleeps in his faded coat of blue,
In a lonely grave unknown lies the heart that beat so true.
He sank faint and hungry among the famished brave,
And they laid him sad and lonely within his nameless grave.
Chorus:
No more the bugle calls the weary one;
Rest, noble spirit, in thy grave unknown!
I'll find you and know you, among the good and true
When a robe of white is giv'n for the faded coat of blue.
He cried, "Give me water and just a little crumb,
And my mother she will bless you through all the days to come.
Oh! Tell my sweet sister, so gentle, good and true,
That I'll meet her up in Heaven in my faded coat of blue."
The Digital Tradition gives these concluding stanzas:
Long, long years have vanished, and though he comes no more,
Yet my heart with faltering beats at each footfall at the door.
I gaze at the hill where he waved his last adieu
But no gallant lad I see in his faded coat of blue.
No sweet voice was there breathing soft a mother's prayer,
But there's One who takes the brave and the true in tender care.
No stone marks the sod o'er my lad so brave and true
In his lonely grave he sleeps in his faded coat of blue.
NEW INFORMATION (8/31/2011): I received an e-mail from Nathan Sarvis, who runs a website, www.music-folk-play-hymns.com, which has tabs and other helps to encourage you to play and sing hymns. He points out that the original sheet music for this song is available at The Lester S. Levy Collection of Sheet Music at the Johns Hopkins Sheridan Libraries. Thank you, Nathan.