“You are one creepy mom.”

My mom and I are getting ready for a road trip to Ohio, and I’ve been putting together some iPod playlists for the car. I’ll spare you the details (mostly because the cringe-worthy songs we’re going to listen to are ones that I actually enjoy), but I asked Mom the other night if there was anything else she wanted to add.

“Oh, there was one by the New Christy Minstrels… what was the name of it?”

I sucked in my breath. “Wait, do you mean that scary one about the mountain and the girl and the bear?” I had just been thinking about that song recently, so it was fresh in my mind.

“YES! Yes! Can you get that one?”

It’s called “Julianne.” I found a YouTube video of it here, from which I made an mp3, and then trotted off to see what the actual lyrics are. I remember them being a little scary, as I said. She used to sing this song to us, and I was always completely fascinated by the story.

The shady side of Sunny Mountain,
That’s the place it all began.
There once lived the fairest maiden
And her name was Julianne.

Julie’s beau was tall and handsome,
Just a poor boy with treasures few.
Still he promised rings of silver
For to prove his love was true.

Have you seen her in the moonlight,
Silver rings upon her hand?
Now she wears a crown of sorrow
And her name, and her name is Julianne.

“Wake me early in the morning
Ere the birds begin to sing.
I’ll get silver from the mountain
And I’ll fashion ye a ring.”

Off he rode across the mountain
When the fields were damp with dew,
But instead he went a-ramblin’
And a-courtin’, a-courtin’ Jenny Lou.

Have you seen her in the moonlight,
Silver rings upon her hand?
Now she wears a crown of sorrow
And her name, and her name is Julianne.

The cabin door was standing open
On that wild and lonely night
And the hound dog, he lay a-dyin’
In the gloomy candlelight.

They found a shattered, empty rifle
And the shawl she used to wear,
But they never found his Julie
And they never found, they never found the hungry bear.

Have you seen her in the moonlight,
Silver rings upon her hand?
Now she wears a crown of sorrow
And her name, and her name is Julianne.

Yeah, not exactly the stuff of bedtime stories. That’s the Zandt household for ya!

So, I sent Mom the lyrics in an email last night, cc’ing my dad, with the subject line “You are one creepy mom.” Evidently Pop opened his email before she left for work, and without any other context from not having been part of the original conversation, thought this was a poem that I’d written. He seemed not to be that soothed by Mom’s explanation, “No no, this was a song I used to sing to the kids!”

Says Mom: “Whaaaaaaaaa!   I have never laughed so hard all the way to work this a.m. Tears from laughing so hard!!!!”

—

PS— When proofing this story, Mom added the following:

Note to young parents:
Do not sing weird songs to your children.  It WILL come back to haunt you 30 years later!