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".
No One Know My Name
Gillian Welch Lyrics
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Oh my mother was just a girl, seventeen
And my dad was passin' through doing things a man will do
Oh my mother was just a girl, seventeen
It's a wonder that I'm in this world at all
It's a wonder that I'm in this world at all
And I have a life to claim though I really don't know my name
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
But it's written up in the sky and I'll see it by and by
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
Well I had a good mother and dad just the same
Well I had a good mother and dad just the same
And they took me to their breast and they surely stood the test
Well I had a good mother and dad just the same
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
Just another baby born to a girl lost and lorn
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
Now and then there's a lonesome thought in my mind
Now and then there's a lonesome thought in my mind
And on the crowded street I see a strangers face that looks like me
Now and then there's a lonesome thought in my mind
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
But I'll see it by and by cause it's written up in the sky
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
The song "No One Know My Name" by Gillian Welch is a hauntingly beautiful ballad that speaks of the singer's uncertain identity and the mystery surrounding her birth. The lyrics imply that the singer's mother was very young when she had her and the father was merely passing through, leaving behind a baby whose name she does not even know. It is clear that her parents loved her and raised her well, but she is still plagued by feelings of loneliness and isolation because no one recognizes her or knows her name.
The repetition of the phrase "Oh my mother was just a girl, seventeen" emphasizes the singer's youth and vulnerability, and it also underscores the fact that she comes from humble beginnings. The line "It's a wonder that I'm in this world at all" suggests that her birth was perhaps unexpected or unwanted, and that she itself was a miracle. The lack of knowledge about her name is further emphasized in the line "Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name," which seems to suggest that the singer feels invisible and anonymous.
Despite her feelings of isolation, the singer takes comfort in the fact that her name is "written up in the sky," suggesting that there is a higher power or destiny that knows her name and will reveal it to her in time. The final verse where she describes the occasional feeling of seeing a stranger's face that looks like hers adds to the song's sense of mystery and sense of fleeting connection.
Overall, "No One Know My Name" is a powerful and poignant song about the search for identity and belonging, and it showcases Welch's ability to craft evocative and emotionally resonant folk songs.
Line by Line Meaning
Oh my mother was just a girl, seventeen
My mother was very young when she gave birth to me at the age of 17.
And my dad was passin' through doing things a man will do
My father is unknown to me and was just a passing stranger that my young mother met.
It's a wonder that I'm in this world at all
Considering my mother's young age, and the unknown identity of my father, it is a miracle that I exist.
And I have a life to claim though I really don't know my name
Even though I don't know who my father is, and my mother may have given me up for adoption, I still have a life to live, but I don't even know my own name.
Ain't one soul in the whole world knows my name
Nobody in the entire world knows my name, which makes me feel lonely and insignificant.
But it's written up in the sky and I'll see it by and by
Even though nobody knows my name now, I believe it is written up in the sky somewhere, and I will eventually discover it.
Well I had a good mother and dad just the same
Although my father is unknown, my mother and whoever raised me were good parents.
And they took me to their breast and they surely stood the test
My parents cared for me and provided for me, and they passed the test of being good parents.
Just another baby born to a girl lost and lorn
To the world, I'm just another baby born to a young, lost and lonely girl.
Now and then there's a lonesome thought in my mind
Occasionally, I feel lonely and disconnected because I don't know anything about my biological roots.
And on the crowded street I see a strangers face that looks like me
Sometimes, I see a stranger on the street who resembles me, which sparks a curiosity of where I come from.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Written by: DAVID TODD RAWLINGS, GILLIAN HOWARD WELCH
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind