In the Pines

For the album by The Triffids, see In the Pines (album).

"In the Pines" (Roud 3421), also known as "Where Did You Sleep Last Night?", "My Girl", "Hey Girl", and "Black Girl", is a traditional American folk song originating from two songs, "In the Pines" and "The Longest Train", both of whose authorship is unknown and date back to at least the 1870s. The songs originated in the Southern Appalachian area of the United States in the contiguous areas of East Tennessee and Kentucky, Western North Carolina and Northern Georgia.[1][2]

Versions of the song have been recorded by many artists in numerous genres, but it is most often associated with American bluegrass musician Bill Monroe and American blues musician Lead Belly, both of whom recorded very different versions of the song in the 1940s and 1950s.[3]

In 1964, a version of the song by English Beat music group the Four Pennies reached the top-twenty in the United Kingdom.[4] A live rendition by American grunge band Nirvana, based on Lead Belly's interpretation, was recorded during their MTV Unplugged performance in 1993, and released the following year on their platinum-selling album, MTV Unplugged in New York.[5][6]

  1. ^ Cohen, Norm (2000), Long Steel Rail: The Railroad in American Folk Song. Chicago, University of Illinois Press, pp. 491–496. ISBN 0252068815. Accessed September 30, 2017.
  2. ^ "In the Pines", Second Hand Songs. Accessed September 30, 2017.
  3. ^ [1]
  4. ^ Seida, Linda. "The Four Pennies – Music Biography, Credits and Discography". AllMusic. Retrieved June 16, 2012.
  5. ^ MTV Unplugged in New York (1993), DGC Records.
  6. ^ Studio 360 (April 19, 2019). "The Haunting Power of 'In The Pines': The song has a rich musical and social history that predates Kurt Cobain and Nirvana". Slate.{{cite magazine}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)