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Elk river blues

from Debut by The Littlest Birds

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about

Sharon: Some friends in Oregon played this tune for me and I fell in love with it. I love the minor, haunting melody. The song struck even more of a chord for me when I dug up the story behind it. Ernie Carpenter was a farmer in West Virginia. The Army Corp of Engineers decided to dam the Elk River, flooding the valley where’s Ernie’s family had farmed. Ernie wrote this tune, watching his home disappear. He spent his last years rambling around, never at home again. I hope he doesn’t mind that I found words, and changed the tune just a bit. It is a bittersweet story, but it made me also acknowledge that all of this land was taken from the people who lived here before me. This song dedicated to all people who are forcibly removed from their homes. I recorded this on my grandpa’s 1800’s Washburn banjo—my first banjo ever.

lyrics

Music by Ernie Carpenter
Words by Sharon Martinson

You dam my river
You flood my farm
You dam my river
You flood my home
I've got no other place I can go to
So forever will I roam.

The water's rising
The birds are flying
They're trying to get
To higher ground
I've got no other place I can go to
So forever will I roam.

*We took this land
From all it’s people
We took these people
From their land
They’ve got no other
Place they can go to
So forever will they roam
*new, unrecorded verse

credits

from Debut, released October 1, 2010
Music by Ernie Carpenter, Lyrics by Sharon Martinson. Arr. The Littlest Birds

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The Littlest Birds Laramie, Wyoming

The Littlest Birds is the banjo-driven music of and Sharon Martinson, performing both solo concerts and currently with several duo and trio configurations. "Think instrumental virtuosity balanced by a breezy, backwoods soul, music that is both intellectually stimulating and emotionally soothing."
- Dan Bolles, Seven Days Weekly, Burlington VT, 2011 ... more

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