Annabelle

Within the expressive idiom of American folk music, is there a more compelling example of literary naturalism than Gillian Welch's 1996 ballad, Annabelle  (on Revival)?

In previous blog posts, on Jurisdynamics and MoneyLaw, I've come close to answering the question. Now I wish to say, emphatically, that Annabelle might well be the perfectly composed song in the Southern folk tradition:

Gillian Welch, Annabelle , Revival (1996) (live on YouTube)

We lease twenty acres and one Ginny mule
From the Alabama trust
For half of the cotton and a third of the corn
We get a handful of dust

We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why

I had a daughter, called her Annabelle
She's the apple of my eye
Tried to give her something like I never had
Didn't ever want to ever hear her cry

We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why

When I'm dead and buried
I'll take a hard life of tears
From every day I've ever known
Anna's in the churchyard she got no life at all
She only got these words on a stone

We cannot have all things to please us
No matter how we try
Until we've all gone to Jesus
We can only wonder why