“Man of Constant Sorrow” had been around for about a century before George Clooney stepped up to the microphone as lead singer for the Soggy Bottom Boys in O Brother, Where Art Thou?, the 2000 Coen brothers film. That version features Dan Tyminski of Alison Krauss & Union Station on vocals, lip-synced by Clooney.
The Stanley Brothers popularized the song with their 1950 recording for Columbia, but it had been published as sheet music in 1913 by blind Kentucky fiddler Dick Burnett. Burnett had almost certainly picked up the song from his elders in southern Appalachia.
When urbanites began to take an interest in “hillbilly music” in the late 1950s, they invited the Stanley Brothers to the inaugural Newport Folk Festival. An 18-year-old Joan Baez was on hand to hear them perform the song, and recorded it herself a year later. Bob Dylan also recorded a version, changing the state where he was born and raised from Kentucky to Colorado. Dylan grew up in Minnesota.
“Man of Constant Sorrow” lyrics and chords
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I am a man of constant
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sorrow
I’ve seen
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trouble all my
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days
I bid farewell to old Ken
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tucky
The place where
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I was born and
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raised.
(The place where
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he was born and
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raised)
For six long years I’ve been in
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trouble,
No pleasure
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here on earth I’ve
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found
For in this world, I’m bound to
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ramble,
I have no
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friends to help me
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now.
(He has no
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friends to help him
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now)
It’s fair thee well, my old true
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lover,
I never ex
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pect to see you a
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gain.
For I’m bound to ride that Northern
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Railroad,
Perhaps I’ll
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die upon this
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train
(Perhaps he’ll
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die upon this
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train)
You can bury me in some deep
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valley,
For many
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years where I may
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lay.
Then you may learn to love a
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nother
While I am
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sleeping in my
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grave.
(While he is
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sleeping in his
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grave)
Maybe your friends think I’m just a
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stranger
My face you’ll
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never see no
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more
But there is one promise that is
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given,
I’ll meet you
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on God’s golden
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shore
(He’ll meet you
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on God’s golden
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shore)
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Iconic: The Stanley Brothers
Ironic: The Soggy Bottom Boys
Also good: Jerry Garcia, David Grisman and Tony Rice
