This morning I was listening to David Gray’s new live covers album when I was suddenly transfixed by his rendition of the oft-recorded country ballad “Long Black Veil.” I was already familiar with the song via the version on Music from Big Pink, the debut record by the Band, but as I listened to Gray’s version I realized I had never really listened to the words before–at least, not closely enough to hear the darkly funny story they tell. Taking in the tale for the first time, I was also amazed at how eerily similar it felt to watching the movie Blood Simple, the Coen brothers’ debut, and my entertainment of choice the previous evening.
Hitchcockian in its methodical intensity, Blood Simple is a twisted and twist-filled story of the betrayals, confusion, and murder that surround a wife’s infidelity. Written by Danny Dill and Marijohn Wilkin and originally recorded by the honky-tonk hero Lefty Frizzell, “Long Black Veil” is the story of a man who accepts a death sentence for murder rather than reveal his alibi because at the time of the killing he was in bed with his best friend’s wife. Told by the executed man, “Long Black Veil” is, like Blood Simple, loaded with a cruel irony that’s only enhanced by its dreamy, timeless quality.
Johnny Cash’s version from Live at Folsom Prison, probably the most dramatic version I’ve heard, is punctuated by a cackle from Cash after he sings “I spoke not a word, though it meant my life, I had been in the arms of my best friend’s wife” and thinks he hears someone in the audience applaud. It’s the kind of laugh I imagine took hold of Joel Coen the first time he watched the Blood Simple credits fall to the sound of the Temptations’ “It’s the Same Old Song”–or, better yet, his original selection, the Monkees’ “I’m a Believer.”
