Songs from the Dead: 10-Minute Histories of Legendary Songs

“Greensleeves” is one of the most familiar melodies in Western music. Today it often sounds like a Christmas song, or background music, or something so old that it no longer asks for attention. That was not how it began. First published in England in 1580, “Greensleeves” was a song about rejection, longing, and resentment. A man addresses a woman who has taken his devotion and his gifts, and then...

John Henry is a folk song about a man who races a machine and wins. Then he dies. The ballad emerged in the late nineteenth century from the African American work camps that built America’s railroads. It tells the story of a steel-driver who competes against a steam drill during tunnel construction, proving that a man can outperform a machine at a fatal cost. This episode follows the song from its...