"Banks of the Ohio" is a song which, to me, represents a sad truth about the power of emotion. Love, they say, is the most beautiful and powerful emotion of them all. I also believe it can be the most sad and evil. There is such a strong sense with love, that all else seems unnecessary. And just as love can bring joy and tranquility, it can also bring pain and fear unlike anything else. "Banks of the Ohio" shows just that. How quickly a man can turn from jubilant hope to bitter, violent defeat all in the name of love. Not just 'love', but the
same love which he possesses from the first line turns this man from good to evil.
My drawing is a response not to the events described in the song, but those which would have to follow. For the song is about Willie and the murder he commits, not about the aftermath. What struck me most was the fact that this young girl is dead, and what that means going forward. What must the sheriff do now, once she has been identified? How he is tasked with the burden of informing her family, and how they are burdened so much more, unfathomably so, by his words. This emotion struck me very firmly, and I drew a semi-gestural image of a woman who, standing in her home, has just learned her daughter is dead.
I like this drawing a lot, James--and the things you write. I could have taken the face as one of several characters. Expressive is good.
ReplyDeleteThere's a beautiful line from another of my favorite old songs, Deep Blue Sea:
"It was Willie, what got drownded, in the deep blue sea... "