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".
One Morning
Gillian Welch Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
What did I see ridin' out of the sun
On the road from Lexington
One rider, one rider beatin' the breeze
Down on his saddle, low to his knees
Comin' through my willow trees
Was stiffened and black where his blood all had run
But I knew my wayward son
One mornin', one mornin' the boy of my breast
Came to my door unable to rest
Even in the arms of death
Gillian Welch's haunting ballad, "One Morning," tells a sorrowful tale of a father who witnesses his wayward son returning home for the last time. The song is built around melancholic guitar twangs and Welch's haunting vocals. The father in the song is hard at work when he spots a rider on the road, coming from Lexington. As the rider approaches, the father recognizes his son, beaten down in his saddle, low to his knees, and covered in blood. The father realizes that his son will not survive, but his heartstrings are tugged by the sight nonetheless.
The imagery in the song is powerful, as Welch describes the terrible work of the gun that had stiffened and blackened where the blood flowed. The father knows that his son had been wayward and troubled, but he's still full of grief and loss upon seeing him riding home to die. The song ends with the father greeting his son and holding him tight, unable to provide anything more than comfort in his dying moments.
The lyrics of "One Morning" are poignant and powerful. They tell a story that is often all too familiar, about a parent who is faced with the tragedy of losing a child who had strayed from the path. Welch's singing brings out the emotional poignancy of the words, and the guitar work adds to the overall sorrowful effect. "One Morning" is an emotional ballad about love, regret, and human frailty, and it's one of Welch's most haunting works.
Line by Line Meaning
One mornin', one mornin' as work I begun
I started my work one morning
What did I see ridin' out of the sun
I saw someone riding towards me from the direction of the sun
On the road from Lexington
He was on the road that goes through Lexington
One rider, one rider beatin' the breeze
The person riding towards me was alone and moving quickly.
Down on his saddle, low to his knees
He was crouched low on his saddle, almost as if he was trying to hide something or evade someone.
Comin' through my willow trees
He was riding through the group of willow trees I had on my property.
Now closer, the terrible work of the gun
As he got closer, I could see that he had clearly been shot.
Was stiffened and black where his blood all had run
His shirt was stiff and black where the blood had dried.
But I knew my wayward son
I recognized the rider as my own son, who had been away for some time and had gotten himself into trouble.
One mornin', one mornin' the boy of my breast
On that morning, my beloved son had returned to me.
Came to my door unable to rest
Despite his injuries, he was determined to see me and seek comfort in my presence.
Even in the arms of death
Even at death's door, he wanted to be with me.
Lyrics © Universal Music Publishing Group, BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Written by: DAVID TODD RAWLINGS, GILLIAN HOWARD WELCH
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
Audrey Eldringhoff
One mornin', one mornin' as work I begun
What did I see ridin' out of the sun
On the road from Lexington
One rider, one rider beatin' the breeze
Down on his saddle, low to his knees
Comin' through my willow trees
Now closer, the terrible work of the gun
Was stiffened and black where his blood all had run
But I knew my wayward son
One mornin', one mornin' the boy of my breast
Came to my door unable to rest
Even in the arms of death
jude999
"In contrast to the stirring 'our brave deeds will overcome our foe' type songs, this ballad speaks of the sadness and despair of the death of an unidentified young soldier. It's a reminder that each one of those 620,000 (or more) who died was someone's son, father, husband, or brother, and many families mourned their loss without knowing where or when they died."
Audrey Eldringhoff
One mornin', one mornin' as work I begun
What did I see ridin' out of the sun
On the road from Lexington
One rider, one rider beatin' the breeze
Down on his saddle, low to his knees
Comin' through my willow trees
Now closer, the terrible work of the gun
Was stiffened and black where his blood all had run
But I knew my wayward son
One mornin', one mornin' the boy of my breast
Came to my door unable to rest
Even in the arms of death
Seedhill Bruiser Music
thankyou so much for the lyrics Audrey, this is my favourite Gillian Welch song and I love to sing along whenever I listen to it but I was stuck on a few words (from line 4 and line 5), I couldn't quite work out what she was singing (maybe cos I'm Scottish). So it's wonderful to find out and be able to sing along to this gorgeous song with total confidence. :-)
julia day
Love this .... shivers ... even Now
svenlittlecross
this is helluva song, downright
Chad Carlson
That all country was this brilliant---in the tradition of Clarence Ashley and the writings of Ambrose Bierce.
Dominic Grasso
The Intro!!!!!!!!! :)))))))
maeveobrien
The best.
Daniel L. Dingeldein
no one does this stuff better
Vixcis
awesome