Gillian Welch
Gillian Howard Welch (born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, bluegrass, country and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms."
Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Read Full BioGillian Howard Welch (born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, bluegrass, country and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms."
Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Her 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time (The Revelator), received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums, and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, she released a fifth studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011, which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. She also appeared in the film attempting to buy a Soggy Bottom Boys record. Welch, while not one of the principal actors, did sing and provide additional lyrics to the Sirens song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." In 2018 she and Rawlings wrote the song "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" for the Coens' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, for which they received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Welch has collaborated and recorded with Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, Sam Phillips, Conor Oberst, Ani DiFranco, and Robyn Hitchcock.
Gillian Howard Welch was born on October 2, 1967 in New York City, and was adopted by Mitzie Welch (née Marilyn Cottle) and Ken Welch, comedy and music entertainers. Her biological mother was a freshman in college, and her father was a musician visiting New York City. Welch has speculated that her biological father could have been one of her favorite musicians, and she later discovered from her adoptive parents that he was a drummer. Alec Wilkinson of The New Yorker stated that "from an address they had been given, it appeared that her mother ... may have grown up in the mountains of North Carolina". When Welch was three, her adoptive parents moved to Los Angeles to write music for The Carol Burnett Show. They also appeared on The Tonight Show.
As a child, Welch was introduced to the music of American folk singers Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Carter Family. She performed folk songs with her peers at the Westland Elementary School in Los Angeles. Welch later attended Crossroads School, a high school in Santa Monica, California. While in high school, a local television program featured her as a student who "excelled at everything she did."
Welch and Rawlings incorporate elements of early twentieth century music such as old time, classic country, gospel and traditional bluegrass with modern elements of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and punk rock. The New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson maintained their musical style is "not easily classified—it is at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms".
The instrumentation on their songs is usually a simple arrangement, with Welch and Rawlings accompanying their own vocals with acoustic guitars, banjos, or a mandolin. Welch plays rhythm guitar with a 1956 Gibson J-50 (or banjo), while Rawlings plays lead on a 1935 Epiphone Olympic Guitar.The New Yorker's Wilkinson described Rawlings as a "strikingly inventive guitarist" who plays solos that are "daring melodic leaps". A review in No Depression by Andy Moore observed that Rawlings "squeezes, strokes, chokes and does just about everything but blow into" his guitar.
Many songs performed by Welch and Rawlings contain dark themes about social outcasts struggling against such elements as poverty, drug addiction, death, a disconnection from their family, and an unresponsive God. Despite Welch being the lead singer, several of these characters are male. Welch has commented, "To be commercial, everybody wants happy love songs. People would flat-out ask me, 'Don't you have any happy love songs?' Well, as a matter of fact, I don't. I've got songs about orphans and morphine addicts." To reflect these themes, Welch and Rawlings often employ a slow pace to their songs. Their tempo is compared to a "slow heartbeat", and Cowperthwait of Rolling Stone observed that their songs "can lull you into near-hypnosis and then make your jaw drop with one final revelation".
Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Read Full BioGillian Howard Welch (born October 2, 1967) is an American singer-songwriter. She performs with her musical partner, guitarist David Rawlings. Their sparse and dark musical style, which combines elements of Appalachian music, bluegrass, country and Americana, is described by The New Yorker as "at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms."
Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Her 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time (The Revelator), received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums, and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, she released a fifth studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011, which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. She also appeared in the film attempting to buy a Soggy Bottom Boys record. Welch, while not one of the principal actors, did sing and provide additional lyrics to the Sirens song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." In 2018 she and Rawlings wrote the song "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" for the Coens' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, for which they received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Welch has collaborated and recorded with Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, Sam Phillips, Conor Oberst, Ani DiFranco, and Robyn Hitchcock.
Gillian Howard Welch was born on October 2, 1967 in New York City, and was adopted by Mitzie Welch (née Marilyn Cottle) and Ken Welch, comedy and music entertainers. Her biological mother was a freshman in college, and her father was a musician visiting New York City. Welch has speculated that her biological father could have been one of her favorite musicians, and she later discovered from her adoptive parents that he was a drummer. Alec Wilkinson of The New Yorker stated that "from an address they had been given, it appeared that her mother ... may have grown up in the mountains of North Carolina". When Welch was three, her adoptive parents moved to Los Angeles to write music for The Carol Burnett Show. They also appeared on The Tonight Show.
As a child, Welch was introduced to the music of American folk singers Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Carter Family. She performed folk songs with her peers at the Westland Elementary School in Los Angeles. Welch later attended Crossroads School, a high school in Santa Monica, California. While in high school, a local television program featured her as a student who "excelled at everything she did."
Welch and Rawlings incorporate elements of early twentieth century music such as old time, classic country, gospel and traditional bluegrass with modern elements of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and punk rock. The New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson maintained their musical style is "not easily classified—it is at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms".
The instrumentation on their songs is usually a simple arrangement, with Welch and Rawlings accompanying their own vocals with acoustic guitars, banjos, or a mandolin. Welch plays rhythm guitar with a 1956 Gibson J-50 (or banjo), while Rawlings plays lead on a 1935 Epiphone Olympic Guitar.The New Yorker's Wilkinson described Rawlings as a "strikingly inventive guitarist" who plays solos that are "daring melodic leaps". A review in No Depression by Andy Moore observed that Rawlings "squeezes, strokes, chokes and does just about everything but blow into" his guitar.
Many songs performed by Welch and Rawlings contain dark themes about social outcasts struggling against such elements as poverty, drug addiction, death, a disconnection from their family, and an unresponsive God. Despite Welch being the lead singer, several of these characters are male. Welch has commented, "To be commercial, everybody wants happy love songs. People would flat-out ask me, 'Don't you have any happy love songs?' Well, as a matter of fact, I don't. I've got songs about orphans and morphine addicts." To reflect these themes, Welch and Rawlings often employ a slow pace to their songs. Their tempo is compared to a "slow heartbeat", and Cowperthwait of Rolling Stone observed that their songs "can lull you into near-hypnosis and then make your jaw drop with one final revelation".
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Look at Miss Ohio
Gillian Welch Lyrics
Oh me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio
She's a-running around with her rag-top down
She says I want to do right but not right now
Gonna drive to Atlanta and live out this fantasy
Running around with the rag-top down
Yeah I want to do right but not right now
Had your arm around her shoulder, a regimental soldier
An' mamma starts pushing that wedding gown
Yeah you want to do right but not right now
Oh me oh my oh, would ya look at Miss Ohio
She's a-runnin' around with the rag-top down
She says I want to do right but not right now
I know all about it, so you don't have to shout it
I'm gonna straighten it out somehow
Yeah I want to do right but not right now
Oh me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio
She a-runnin' around with her rag-top down
She says I want to do right , but not right now
Oh I want to do right but not right now
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: Gillian Howard Welch, David Todd Rawlings
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
To comment on specific lyrics, highlight them
Keith Moore
"Look at Miss Ohio" by Gillian Howard Welch and David Rawlings
Oh me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio
She's a-running around with her rag-top down
She says I want to do right but not right now
Gonna drive to Atlanta and live out this fantasy
Running around with the rag-top down
Yeah I want to do right but not right now
Had your arm around her shoulder, a regimental soldier
An' mamma starts pushing that wedding gown
Yeah you want to do right but not right now
Oh me oh my oh, would ya look at Miss Ohio
She's a-runnin' around with the rag-top down
She says I want to do right but not right now
I know all about it, so you don't have to shout it
I'm gonna straighten it out somehow
Yeah I want to do right but not right now
Oh me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio
She a-runnin' around with her rag-top down
She says I want to do right , but not right now
Oh I want to do right but not right now
Steve Cabral
If you were only guessing from the song’s title, you might expect a condescending look at a beauty queen. For one, the Miss Ohio title seems ceremonial at best, meant to represent the kind of All-American girl of whom everything is expected with the possible exception of individualism. And Welch never judges the character, simply telling her story in a fashion that’s so economical it’s practically minimalist. Yet she says all she needs to say.
It helps that she has a refrain that does a lot of the heavy lifting. “Oh me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio,” she sings, her voice falling from a high trill to lower, confidential tones for the next lines: “She’s a running around with the rag top down/ She says I wanna do right but not right now.“ In those three lines, Welch has established the judgmental stance of the townsfolk, the beauty queen’s behavior which might not be pageant-approved, and her intention to clean up her act, but only after living a little first.
In the verses, Welch adds some details, like an impulsive trip to Georgia (partially and cleverly rhyming “Atlanta” and “fantasy”), the warmer climate promising hotter times than her chilly Midwestern home. The narrator also addresses what seems to be her ex-boyfriend, the one who had his arm around her like “a regimental soldier”, an image that suggests safety, formality, and not an ounce of fun. It’s in that context that Mama enters the picture, “pushing that wedding gown” like a pesky salesman that you can’t shake.
Of course, other listeners might interpret the song differently; such is the beauty of Welch’s construction that it allows for multiple takes. Rawlings certainly offers his own commentary with his simple, unshowy playing that nonetheless suggests all kinds of emotional avenues, which is right in tune with the less-is-more approach of the lyrics.
The last verse hints at some kind of trouble that Miss Ohio has encountered, a jam from which she needs to extricate herself. But she insists that she can do so without any help, thank you: “I know all about it, so you don’t have to shout it/ I’m gonna straighten it out somehow.” You can decide for yourself how deep that trouble is and if she’ll indeed set it right; Welch seems okay with it no matter how it turns out.
The songwriter basically creates a world of possibilities and outcomes for the character, which is somehow fitting considering she has reached a crossroads in her young life. “Look At Miss Ohio” is one of Gillian Welch’s “lonesome stories,” and this one somehow more captivating for not having a clear ending.
Joao Belmino Lopes Chaves
Oh me, oh my-oh
Look at Miss Ohio
She's a-running around with her rag-top down
She says, I want to do right but not right now
Gonna drive to Atlanta
And live out this fantasy
Running around with the rag-top down
Yeah, I want to do right, but not right now
Had your arm around her shoulder
A regimental soldier
And mama starts pushing that wedding gown
Yeah, you want to do right, but not right now
Oh me, oh my-oh
Would you look at Miss Ohio
She's a-running around with the rag-top down
She says, I want to do right, but not right now
And I know all about it
So you don't have to shout it
I'm gonna straighten it out somehow
Yeah, I want to do right, but not right now
Oh me, oh my-oh
Look at Miss Ohio
She's a-running around with her rag-top down
She says, I want to do right, but not right now
Oh, I want to do right, but not right now
federico ligorio
"Look At Miss Ohio"
Oh me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio
She’s a running around with her rag-top down
She says I wanna do right but not right now
Gonna drive to Atlanta and live out this fantasy
Running around with the rag-top down
Yeah, I wanna do right but not right now
Had your arm around her shoulder, a regimental soldier
An' mamma starts pushing that wedding gown
Yeah, you wanna do right but not right now
Oh me oh my oh, would you look at Miss Ohio
She’s a runnin’ around with the rag-top down
She says I wanna do right but not right now
I know all about it, so you don’t have to shout it
I’m gonna straighten it out somehow
Yeah, I wanna do right but not right now
Oh me oh my oh, look at Miss Ohio
She a runnin’ around with her rag-top down
She says I wanna do right , but not right now
Oh, I want do right but not right now
Destinee Siebe
I had absolutely no idea that I needed this song until hearing for the first time now.
Peter Drysdale
@pelotasdad So relatable and humanizing.
Peter Sposet
So right D
svenlittlecross
its destinee baybe
huxley buxley
huxley buxley1 second agohey Ms Siebe figures a BW student knows a great song Solon High 1983
pelotasdad
such a great song.... “i want to do right, but not right now” reminds of something dorothy parker would have written.....
Bobby Sternlicht
There was a time I thought songs like these could save me - now I know they can't they got even more beautiful
Joe Hacker
This is the shit we all need
Leah Augustine
Bring shiloh back
Mike Scheibinger
innaresting