Hang down your head Tom Dooley

Scotch and soda, mud in your eye

The coroner's quest goes hard with me because I acted fraily.

I don't give a damn 'cause I done that already

We let the candle go, boys
W e had no care or strife.

And sleeps ... and sleeps ... and sleeps ... This song appears to be a lullaby ... oh well it sure works!!!!

By the time this song came out, the Trio had at least one gold record out...even within the lyrics they ask that their mail go to the jail. Heck, their agent could have wired them the $500 from their bank! And another thing: Twenty years ago my cousin rode to Tijuana with some friends, and another group...to make a long story short, the others were arrested in Tijuana for trying to sell a stolen car, and my cousin was jailed with them. The American consul office got him released without a dime changing hands.

Historic accuracy is often absent from this otherwise charming little ditty about Anne Boleyn's ghost haunting the Tower Of London. These closing lines are perhaps the bext example of that lack of historic accuracy. Besides Anne Boleyn {Henry's second wife), the only other wife that he had behaeded was his fifth wife, Catherine Howard. So she was the only other one who would make much sense to make sense in the context of these final lines, where Henry wonders which one of his wifes is haunting him with her head tucked underneath her arm. Jane Seymour was his thrid wife, who died in childbirth, giving Henry his only male heir. By all accounts, Henry was genuinely mournful over her passing. So her reference in this context hardly fits. But even less fitting is the reference to Catherine Paar. She was Henry's sixth and last wife, who outlived him.

This delightful little whimsical ditty, about Anne Boleyn's ghost haunting the Tower of London, while Henry VIII was still King, is long on charm but short on historical accuracy. Even if some kind of 'poetic license' allows us to overlook the anachronism of members of the court of King Henry VIII having knowledge of American football, the reference to Army is still rather out of place. Red Grange played for the University of Illinois and for the Chicago Bears, never for Army.

Woody Guthrie originally wrote this song in 1941, when there were 48 states. Then Alaska and Hawaii became states in 1959. Then the Kingston Trio covered the song in their 1961 album "Goin' Places". Sung in 1961 it would imply that the states the migrant has been to would include Alaska and Hawaii, even though that is in no way implied by the song as Guthrie originally wrote it.

King Henry VIII

Jane Seymour (wife of King Henry VIII, not to be confused with modern actress with same name)

this song is frightening it sounds like a song about the dropping of the atomic bomb

In this song, a trader wants to take the daughter of an Indian chief west across the Missouri River.

Refers to the U.S. state of Tennessee. The song is loosely based on a true story that took place in northwesteren North Carolina, the actualy character's name being Tom Dula. Although "Grayson" is a place name applying to certain places in the vicinity of where North Carolina, Tennessee, and Virginia come together, the name probably refers to a person in this case.

"Ah! les fraises et les framboises et les bon vins que nous avons bus." is French and means "Oh, the strawberries and the raspberries, and the good wines that we have drunk."

i know that some,folk's sing this,around a campfire,yet it's about a condemned man!,hardly anything to rejoyce about!

This bitterly satirical song first talks of human enmities, as well as natural disasters. Then in this climactic verse it speaks of the threat of nuclear annihilation. Throughout the song, it is done with ap upbeat and ostensibly celebratory tune and spirit, as the word "merry" in the title implies. Incidentally, some of the most poignant and / or ironic lines in this song, including "And we will all be blown away", were sung by Kingston Trio member Nick Reynolds, who died this month (October, 2008). RIP.