THE MESMERIZING GRIEF OF KAREN DALTON’S “KATIE CRUEL” & HOW THE APPARITIONS OF THE CHORUS RESEMBLED THE SINGER’S OWN DOWNFALL.

Up the alley of “a folk singer unlike anyone else you’ve ever heard before” we arrive (inevitably) at the complicated, complex figure of Karen Dalton. Virtually all her singing can pierce you, yet her most distinctive work, the traditional folk song “Katie Cruel,” will carve deep into your being. If you’re brave enough to give a damn, the tune will absolutely shatter your invulnerability. No small part of that reaction will owe to the song’s elusive, riddling chorus. Ascertaining its meaning may resemble the impossible feat of trying to catch echoes with your hands, yet may be crucial to comprehending the entireties of Dalton’s tragic demise.


an all-too-brief bio

After leaving Oklahoma in the early 1960s, the part-Cherokee, part-Irish Dalton became a fixture in the Greenwich Village folk scene. Bob Dylan famously referred to her as his favorite singer. Perhaps the most nourishing thing about Karen Dalton’s career is that she cut a reluctant pose when it came to “success” — unwilling or unable to clamber aboard the “ladder of fame.” Handfuls of tragedies (such as heartbreaking stories involving her two estranged children) contrast with the irresistible virtuosity of her music, though ultimately, she drifted into obscurity. Dalton passed away in 1993 near Woodstock, New York. A heroin addict, she had likely acquired AIDS through sharing needles. Some of her recordings and live performances from the 1960s and 1970s have been reissued, underscoring their persistent vitality. Over the last several years, at least three documentaries (film and audio) have accompanied a resurgence of interest in her music.


more on “katie cruel”

The traditional American folk song “Katie Cruel” (sometimes titled “Katy Cruel”) may date back to the eighteenth century. A 1939 work, Folk Songs of Old New England, as presented by folklorist Eloise Hubbard Linscott, situates the tune among the region’s historical “ballads, folk songs, and ditties.” Linscott further describes “Katie Cruel” as a marching song favored during the Revolutionary War. She offers notated music alongside an array of lyrics.

Dalton recorded the song at least five or six times, often accompanying herself on banjo. In some of these versions, she whistles. The most famous rendition of “Katie Cruel,” however, pairs Dalton’s vocals and banjo with the violin of Bobby Notkoff. This recording, captured on the 1971 album In My Own Time, ought to puncture the thickest, most world-weary veneers. Where Dalton may have whistled on solo renditions, Notkoff instead enters on violin, just bursting with reverence for the song’s elegiac carpentry. It could be argued that both he and Dalton understood the song equitably.

A few critics have approached Dalton’s performances of the song. One writer, Rick Moody, correctly characterized “Katie Cruel” as Dalton’s “signature tune,” yet misapprehended Notkoff’s role in the song. He deems the effort “an intrusive fiddle.” Another writer, Barney Hoskyns, offers a welcome improvement. In designating Dalton’s recording of “Katie Cruel” as being both “darkly chilling” and “terrifying[ly] beautiful,” Hoskyns acknowledges the accompaniment of Notkoff’s “spooky electric violin.” And by “electric” he may suggest “plugged in,” or reminiscent of high voltage, or both.

dalton’s lyrics

Here are Dalton’s lyrics for your consideration as you absorb the song. We suggest you especially meditate on the two iterations of the chorus.

     When I first came to town
     They called me the roving jewel
     Now they’ve changed their tune
     (And) call me Katie Cruel

     Through the woods I am going
     Through the boggy mire
     (And) straightway down the road
     Till I come to my heart’s desire

     [Chorus]
     If I was where I would be
     Then I’d be where I am not
     Here I am where I must be
     Where I would be, I cannot

     When I first came to town
     They bought me drinks aplenty
     Now they’ve changed their tune
     (And) hand me the bottles empty

     [Chorus]
     If I was where I would be
     Then I’d be where I am not
     Here I am where I must be
     Where I would be, I cannot

At first appearing in town as an attractive drifter, namely, “the roving jewel,” the speaker subsequently traverses the woods and bogs as an outsider. No longer receiving free “drinks aplenty” at the tavern, the speaker has been callously nicknamed “Katie Cruel.” In an equally damaging turnabout, she is the recipient of empty bottles, a gutting twist of mockery. “Katie Cruel” traffics in both estrangement and the tides of isolation. The potent mystery of the song revolves around whatever led to the “changed tune” of the townspeople. What had the speaker done, to deserve the withdrawal of their kindliness? She’s not being stoned to death, as in Shirley Jackson’s famous short story, “The Lottery,” but she is being shunned to death. 

and the chorus?

The oppositional values of the lyrics may correlate with Dalton’s own clashing presences. She was Dylan’s favorite singer, on the one hand, yet didn’t succeed as a popular musician. As “the roving jewel,” Dalton arrived in Greenwich Village and became a fixture during the American folk revival, but years later, by then largely forgotten by her community, she grappled with the vagaries of addiction and terminal illness. Her physical appearance, though marred by missing teeth, was undeniably beautiful. Dalton therefore resembles the character she sings about, in “Katie Cruel.” That she listed too deeply into the fictional world of the song and began to resemble (or embrace) its outcome, cannot be conclusively thrown aside. The lyrics are mournful without specifically mentioning death, yet the tune obviously conjures the acids of loss through the devastating grief of the music.

Dalton, of course, did not invent “Katie Cruel.” She adapted the lyrics from the tune’s traditional form. It may be helpful to compare the 1939 anthologized chorus (from New England) with the chorus that Dalton frequently recorded, as there are minor differences:

      Oh, that I was where I would be
     Then should I be where I am not
     Here I am where I must be
     Where I would be, I cannot
     —Linscott, 1939

     If I was where I would be
     Then I’d be where I am not
     Here I am where I must be
     Where I would be, I cannot
     —Dalton, 1971 (among other times)

The most important word in both renditions — given its repetition — might be the indistinct locator, “where.” The speaker, accordingly, searches for footing. “If I was where I would be” relies heavily upon the conditional word, “would.” It imagines an impossible alternative journey, or era, and in doing so, confers a gloomy sense of irony on the ensuing line: “Then I’d be where I am not.” Dalton alleges a certain inescapability when she sings “Here I am where I must be,” that is, in the world of being dubbed Katie Cruel and trudging the desolate landscape as an outcast. “Where I would be, I cannot” trails off, cementing the singer’s demise. Since Dalton “cannot” situate herself in the place “where [she] would be,” the listener, of a sudden, apprehends the doom, the blow the singer cannot overcome.


coda

“Katie Cruel” drifted towards Karen Dalton perhaps from the distant days of the Revolutionary War. She embraced the tune and made it the “jewel” of her repertoire. She may have even resembled the “roving jewel” she sang about, enduring multiple tragedies akin to those revealed in the lyrics. The chorus itself doesn’t merely reinforce these tragedies, but deals in multiple presences. It may conjure the way Dalton’s song hovers about us now, preparing each of us for that solitary “going,” the way we would be and the way we must be, as the late-day sunshine glances off our fingertips and the love, like a fierce echo, escapes our grasp.

sources of information:

BBC audio documentary Sweet Mother KD (2016).
The Guardian article on the 2021 Karen Dalton documentary film.
Barney Hoskyns. Small Town Talk. Da Capo Press, 2016.
Eloise Hubbard Linscott. Folk Songs of Old New England. The MacMillan Co., 1939.
“Rick Moody on Karen Dalton.” icon. Amy Scholder, editor. Feminist Press, 2014.
Washington Post article on Dalton’s mysterious life (and 2021 documentary).
Wikipedia page for Karen Dalton.

Discographic information for “Katie Cruel.” Karen Dalton, In My Own Time, fourth track. Traditional lyrics, arranged by Karen Dalton. Recorded in New York, 1970-1971. Released 1971 on Paramount Records. Dalton: banjo, vocals; Bobby Notkoff: violin. Dalton recorded other versions of the song at other times and performed it often during live appearances.

Karen Dalton was also featured in our “Unassailable Vocalists” post from 2017.