Pretty Polly Track

On our way up to Oriental North Carolina for a concert, we stopped for “Carolina Bar-B-Que” at a place called “Prissy Polly’s” just south of Winston Salem. The name reminded me of a song we recorded in the Byrds on the “Sweetheart of the Rodeo” album called “Pretty Polly.” I’d known the song since my days at the Old Town School of Folk Music and had always loved the modal tuning on the banjo and guitar in spite of the morbid lyrics. This is a good example of a song used for spreading the news of the day, way back before radio, television or the Internet. The content of the news today is however strikingly similar.
Lyrics and chords available from Folk Den Project.