“Sourwood Mountain” is a traditional Appalachian song and fiddle tune whose melody is generally traced to the British Isles, carried into the southern mountains by Scotch-Irish settlers. It takes its name from the sourwood tree, a small flowering hardwood common in the region.
Older versions of the song told a darker story involving a snakebite and a death, but the version that became widely known shifted toward light, flirtatious courting verses strung together with a nonsense refrain. The lyric jumps from one image of mountain life and sweethearts to the next, held together more by rhythm and the refrain than by any single narrative.
The song has long served as both a singing piece and a dance tune in old-time and bluegrass settings.
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