Free The Blood Ballad by Rett MacPherson

said.
    â€œWhich one?” she asked.
    â€œThe second voice,” I said. We both strained to listen to the next song, even though the volume was up plenty. It was as if we were listening for what we couldn’t hear, whatever was supposed to be between the lines.
    The song was a comical tune about a boy who liked to fish all day. “Why, little Jed even slept with the fishes,” the lyrics went. Then the chorus to the song: “Fishes, fishes, little fishes, Momma likes to beat him with the dishes. Take your time, sleep all day, those fishes aren’t goin’ anywhere anyway.” Then there was the fiddle solo. It was a typical jaunty dance tune written during that era. Goofy lyrics were often applied to happy music, anything to make the American people smile, even if just for an evening. Quite often, there was some hefty satire going on, too, and there was no shortage of morbid songs, either. But the happy songs were what people latched onto, especially in the Midwest.
    But this song … there was something about this song.
    â€œI don’t understand,” Stephanie said. “What are we listening for?”
    â€œI’m not sure,” I said. “But … there’s something…”
    â€œWhat?”
    â€œI’ve heard it before,” I said.
    â€œWell, wouldn’t that be the case? You said Grandpa played all the time.”
    â€œYeah, but that’s not where I’ve heard it.”
    I went to my computer and Googled the lyrics to the song. A couple of Web sites popped up. Imagine my surprise when right there on the computer screen was the song “Jed’s Fishin’ Days,” written and copyrighted by none other than Scott Morgan. That was where I’d heard it before. It was a Morgan Family Players song.
    â€œWhat?” Stephanie asked.
    â€œThis says the song was written by Scott Morgan, but Grandpa just said there on the recording that he wrote the song for his son Jed.”
    â€œWhat’s the copyright date?”
    â€œWell, that doesn’t necessarily mean anything,” I said. “These old songs—what I call Americana music—some of them are old English ballads or Scottish highland music. They came to this country with the immigrants, who then sang them and changed them, until they evolved into what groups like the Carter Family recorded. Some of these songs are hundreds of years older than their copyright date. So you can’t really go by that. Not always. Scott Morgan would have put whatever date he recorded the song as his copyright date, even though it could have been in his repertoire for years. Obviously, the date on this is six years after Grandpa would have written it. My point being, if anybody would have said anything to Scott Morgan about the authenticity of this song, he could easily have said, ‘I wrote that song years ago.’ Unless Grandpa or somebody took him to court, nobody would be the wiser.”
    â€œSo … this isn’t bluegrass, right?” she asked.
    â€œNo, bluegrass came later, but bluegrass is descended from this music. You wouldn’t have bluegrass without it. It’s very difficult to explain the subtle differences in some of this old music, especially when each is so dependent on the other for its existence, if you know what I mean.”
    â€œNo, I don’t,” she said, smiling.
    â€œWell, it’s like bluegrass borrowed the old highland music from Scotland and England, but then added the African influence of the banjo … but then it also has a very American country feel to it. Like the style of picking the banjo. The clawhammer style, that’s fairly unique to bluegrass. After the musicians had spent years living in the mountains of Kentucky, Virginia, and the like, those songs from the old country had become distinctly Americanized. It’s very complicated but also very organic. At any rate, the stuff that our Grandpa