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".
204 Not Afraid to Die
Gillian Welch Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Beyond the earth and sky
Lie-d Lie-d Lie
I'm not afraid to die
And there the work of my own hand
Be broken by and by
Lie-d Lie-d Lie
Sometimes it finds me fast asleep
And wakes me where I lie
Lie-d Lie-d Lie
I'm not afraid to die
Forget my sins upon the wind
My hobo soul will rise
Lie-d Lie-d Lie
I'm not afraid to die
Lie-d Lie-d Lie
I'm not afraid to die
The lyrics to Gillian Welch and Willie Nelson's song I'm Not Afraid To Die speak about death and the acceptance of it. The singer acknowledges that nobody knows what lies beyond the earth and sky, but they are not afraid to face death. The lyrics suggest a belief that death is a natural part of life, and that one should not be afraid to embrace it. The repetition of the phrase "Lie-d Lie-d Lie" creates a rhythm that reinforces the idea that death is an inevitable part of life's cycle.
The second verse talks about the transient nature of human accomplishments. No matter how much we achieve in life, it will eventually be broken down "by and by". However, the singer is still not afraid of what is to come. The third verse suggests that death can come suddenly, even when one is asleep. However, this does not frighten the singer. In fact, they seem to welcome it.
The final verse speaks of the hope that the singer's "hobo soul" will rise and forget their sins upon the wind. This line suggests a belief in the afterlife and the idea that the soul will survive beyond death. The repetition of "Lie-d Lie-d Lie" at the end of the song emphasizes the conviction that the singer is truly not afraid to die.
Line by Line Meaning
Nobody knows what waits ahead
I am aware that the future is uncertain and unpredictable
Beyond the earth and sky
The unknown future may extend beyond our physical world
Lie-d Lie-d Lie
Repetition emphasising the message
I'm not afraid to die
I do not fear death or the unknown
And there the work of my own hand
My own accomplishments and creations may be destroyed over time
Be broken by and by
Gradually and inevitably wearing away
Sometimes it finds me fast asleep
Death may come unexpectedly, catching me unprepared
And wakes me where I lie
Death will bring me to a new state of being
Forget my sins upon the wind
After death, my past wrongs will no longer define me
My hobo soul will rise
My wandering spirit will transcend to a new existence
Lie-d Lie-d Lie
Repetition emphasising the message
I'm not afraid to die
I do not fear death or the unknown
Lyrics © Wixen Music Publishing, Universal Music Publishing Group
Written by: DAVID TODD RAWLINGS, GILLIAN HOWARD WELCH
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@PlotTwistHub
Ellen really got caught ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbr5noYczHo
@hannadeshler1426
3:00 - Why did Ellen, whose very wealthy because of the ratings generated by guests, not step in & offer this deceived guest, help with college for her daughter??
@user-ii2uh1xq7b
umm its al staged and rehearsed
@user-ii2uh1xq7b
@@hannadeshler1426 they know the questions and rehearse it before the show.
@BeverlyMurphy-ii2wp
Why is this piece still on TV. I thought they got rid of her. Whew she is a piece This is the inner mean side coming out as she plays it like a Joke NOT Funny !!!! When will we see the LAST OF HER!!!!! A.S.A.P. 🤞
@anthonyglee1710
I can’t understand why Ellen is so popular. She gives me the creeps.
@lisawentworth6831
she used to be self-effacing and wonderfully awkward. Now she pulls mean stunts....isn't that what schoolyard bullies do?
@lisawentworth6831
@Youtubers fan And dj too You don't think what in 2021? The topic was why is Ellen so popular, when she gives some the creeps. Justin Beiber and stuff like that was much later. She used to have a sitcom where they was beloved. Then she came out ,dropped off the radar for a while, but came back due to her niceness. What a lot of us are saying is that she is not that nice; her whole playing pranks is a schoolyard bully tactic, and not what nice people do.
@vmm5163
I used to love Ellen in her sitcom, she was very smiley and likable. But she turned into a horrible person
@ianmangham4570
Alot of CREEPS in this world.