Lead Belly To Nirvana And More – Where Did You Sleep Last Night?

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Also known as In The Pines, and Black Girl, today we move onto another traditional song variously interpreted, dark and brooding, haunting in its melody, and simmering with suspicion and jealousy. It was first recorded in the Appalachian regions of Eastern Tennessee and Kentucky, Western North Carolina and Northern Georgia and like many traditional songs, was passed around by aural traditions, with lyrics that inevitably vary. It is a combination of In The Pines and another song, The Longest Train, which was first recorded in 1925 on phonograph cylinder. My girl, my girl, don't lie to meTell me where did you sleep last night?In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don't ever shineI would shiver the whole night through.My girl, my girl, where will you go?I'm going where the cold wind blows.In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don't ever shineI would shiver the whole night through.And once there was a hard working manJust about a mile from here.His hair was found in a driving wheel,But his body never was found.My girl, my girl, don't lie to meTell me where did you sleep last night?In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don't ever shineI would shiver the whole night through.My girl, my girl, where will you go?I'm going where the cold wind blows.In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don't ever shineI would shiver the whole night through.My girl, my girl, don't lie to meTell me where did you sleep last night?In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don't ever shineI would shiver the whole night through.My girl, my girl, where will you go?I'm going where the cold wind blows.In the pines, in the pines, where the sun don't ever shineI would shiver the whole night through.First up, Bill Monroe and The Bluegrass Boys recorded it in 1941 and 1952:  

Lead Belly, aka Huddie William Ledbetter, perhaps with the best known version, made several recordings between 1944  and 1948:

The Black Pennies had a top-20 UK hit in 1964:

In a much higher register, and with a different perspective, Marianne Faithfull sang it in 1965 for her album Come My Way:

It was rather differently interpreted by French cajun and zydeco musicians such as Nathan Abshire, the Louisiana Cajun accordion player with his biggest hit La Negresse, here seen playing in 1975:

Mark Lanegan’s deep voice unearthed it again, for his 1990 album, The Winding Sheet:

Lanegan in turn introduced in to Kurt Cobain and Nirvana, who then made this landmark recording on the MTV Unplugged in New York album in November 1994.

Many other versions by artists such as Long John Baldy to Dolly Parton, Bob Dylan to Ralph Stanley to Marilyn Manson, but one of the more interesting ones is by Finnish rock group Lasten Hautausmaa, with their whispering, Nico-style female vocals - translated as Tyttöni from their eponymous 2015 release.

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