: Music Samples
Rose or the Briar
(Hungrytown)
© 2006 Rebecca Hall.
I wanted to write a song that sounded like an old Carter Family parlor ballad; I thought that might fit in nicely with the album's somewhat old-fashioned concept (yes, Hungrytown was created as a start-to-finish album, not a random collection of singles). At the time I was reading Dickens' Great Expectations, and based the song's characters on the dysfunctional relationship between the loyal Pip and and the indifferent Estella. RH
What will you be tonight, my love, what will you be tonight, the rose or the briar?
I met her walking in the lane
Her angel face so fair.
But from her lips such words did come
The devil answered there.
Her words so rough to other ears
To mine like kisses seemed.
How came my unsuspecting heart
To love a girl so mean?
My love grows up between the thorns
In a garden rich and strange.
It thrives upon the rocky soil
And scorns the sun and rain.