Jeni Hankins & Billy Kemp: Listen & Lyrics

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I wrote this song based on imagery that I remembered years later from the documentary “Wisconsin Death Trip.” This was the second song I ever wrote in the traditional Appalachian ballad style and like “The Hoot Owl” it grew out of the image of a bird, in this case a black and white mottled hen. My mom and dad raise chickens on a small scale for eggs and meat and I like to carry one around the yard because I’m so in love with their warm roundness and the strange leathery feeling of their feet. I suppose this song is a foil to Gillian Welch’s beautiful song “Orphan Girl.” My protagonist find’s herself alone and cannot bring herself to look for solace in Heaven.

Sister was gone three days before the law gave up their search.
Mother and I set out ourselves though we were dressed for church.

We took Old Rufus Tanner’s boat ‘cause he’s too dead to want it.
Mother pointed her finger upstream where the way was foggy and haunted.

We made our way up the river deep and mother watched ‘cross the bow.
I manned the oars and feared to think I had no sister now.

Mother’s back was straight and narrow in her calico dress.
She hardly blinked her eyes that morn for fear what she might miss.

Mother called poor sister’s name and bowed her weary head.
In her lap our good laying hen, its comb was bloody red.

How sister loved that speckled bird which mother brought for hope.
Mother held that bird so tight for sister loved it so.

Pointing her finger through the fog, mother went all white.
Sister’s clothes lay on the bank. Oh, what a dreadful sight.

The laying hen let out a crow. The blood in my veins went cold.
Mother broke that poor bird’s neck for death it’s cry foretold.

Sister’s clothes were laid out so fine only her body was missing.
Her long sleeves crossed upon her chest the toes of her black boots kissing.

The dominecker lay in the boat. The blood flowed from its beak.
Mother laid down on the mossy bank and fell in a stoney sleep.

There I closed my mother’s eyes and folded sister’s dress.
I said goodbye with these few words in my Sunday best.

I have no family in this world, no mother or sister now.
I hate to think the awful things that heaven will allow.

Sisters drowned or disappeared, mother’s turned to stone,
orphans homeless and condemned to walk this world alone.