“The First Whippoorwill” was written by Bill Monroe, the founding figure of bluegrass, who recorded it with his Blue Grass Boys around 1950 and 1951.
The song ties the change of seasons to the loss of a love. The whippoorwill, a bird whose call is heard at dusk in spring, becomes a marker of time and of solitude: hearing its first call of the year, the singer is reminded of someone now gone, and the loneliness deepens with the sound.
The song shows the high, mournful side of Monroe’s writing, and it passed into the wider bluegrass repertoire. The version heard here is by Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys.
