“Undone in Sorrow” was written by Ola Belle Reed, the banjo player and singer from the North Carolina mountains who later settled in the Maryland and Pennsylvania border country. She recorded it in the 1970s.
Reed herself called it a sad, mournful song, and so it is. It is a graveside lament, the singer standing over the resting place of someone loved and giving voice to a grief that has left her undone. The plainness of the words deepens the sorrow.
Ola Belle Reed wrote songs that bridged old-time and bluegrass, and this is one that has stayed with later musicians.
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