I have been wanting to share a cover of this song for so long. There was a version I started recording two summers ago that somehow was abandoned. I love this song. It was written by Elizabeth Cotten, a black woman born in North Carolina in 1893 and for anyone with any uncertainty, she was such a badass. Apart from surviving in the US while black, being left-handed and teaching herself to play a right handed guitar upside down, and writing this amazing song in her early teens, she—along with many other women of color—made important, defining contributions to American music and music across the world. Since contributions by people of color are so often silently co-opted by white people, I want to be deliberate in honoring her. With love and respect, here is my cover of her beautiful, timeless song.
Black lives matter, not just the lives of black people who are amazing artists.
-s