That High Lonesome Sound

By:Peter Rowan · Source Recording: Old and in the Way (1973^*)Song details

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Well get you father get your mother get your sister get your brother
Aunt Lucy gonna show Uncle John
How to do the boogie woogie while the kissing cousin chasing chicken
Out on the old back lawn

Y'all come with one another just to go a little further
If the schoolbus don't break down
Campfires burnin' in the night my heart is yearnin'
For the sight of the old campground

And that high lonesome sound
When that evening sun goes down
I'll be crawlin' on the ground
When I hear a fiddle play that high lonesome sound

Well bring along your lawn chair for sittin' in the fresh air
And thе cooler for the beer and watch the show
There's clog dancing horses prancing syncopated music playing
Girls are lookin pretty don't you know

Ah look at old man pappy he's feelin' kind of snappy
Seem like he just don't care
That he's over ninety three he's as spry as you and me
Dancing to the music in the air

Well young ones old ones lookin' like they're havin' fun
Enjoyin' the country view
Tellin' jokes to all the folks how the Watergate got broke in
And how this grass got blue

Hey mister fiddle man play us all a little jam
Now now now now
And that's the way Monroe say Uncle Pen's on him
To play ridin' on the back of a mule

Tempo BPM

Key A

Verse

Chorus

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By:Peter Rowan · Source Recording:Old and in the Way (1973^*)

Song Details

Also Known As

High Lonesome Sound

Songwriter

Peter Rowan

First Release

Old and in the Way (1996)

Genres

Progressive Bluegrass

Jam Popularity

History

“That High Lonesome Sound” (also called “High Lonesome Sound”) was written by Peter Rowan. Neil Rosenberg, in his notes to the 1996 album that carries its title, describes it as Rowan’s song about bluegrass festivals, and the lyric pictures one: families piling in, folding chairs and coolers, clog dancing, a very old man dancing to the music, and a call for the fiddler to play a jam. One verse jokes about Watergate. Rowan also works in a story Bill Monroe had told him about his uncle, Pendleton Vandiver, the Uncle Pen of Monroe’s own song, playing fiddle on the back of a mule.