The Cup Song: A Surprising Medieval History

Did you miss me? Yeah, I figured. I just didn't have the time to update last semester. Taking two foreign languages and two upper-level English classes was nearly the death of me. Anyway, I'm back now, for better or for worse.

I have been reliably informed that a movie called Pitch Perfect is something of a pop culture phenomenon. I still haven't seen it, but completely by accident I stumbled upon the medieval origins of one of the film's most popular songs. Now, in the interest of full disclosure, this is all speculation on my part. It's informed speculation, to be sure, but there isn't a definitive answer.

This morning, when I was messing around on the internet, I came across an insanely catchy medieval ballad called "The Fause Knight Upon the Road." According to Professor Francis Child, a renowned mid-19th century scholar of medieval ballads, the first written record of the song comes in the 1827, in a book called Minstrelsy: Ancient and Modern by William Motherwell. The song is recorded in the introduction, on page lxxiv. He notes that "The False Knight" is part of a long-standing tradition of songs sung as a series of riddles and answers. Typically, as in this instance, the Devil in disguise poses a series of riddles to a wise innocent. The mortal solves the riddles and the Devil vanishes. Motherwell recorded this ballad in Galloway, in southwest Scotland.

Unfortunately, the lack of earlier printed evidence makes the ballad harder to date. However, using Motherwell's spellings and the OED, I've tried to find a rough date. 

• whare, Middle English for where. In use 1300-1500.
• gaun, going. Exact form from 18th cent.
• faus, Scottish for false. 17th cent.
• knicht, Scottish for knight. 15th cent.
• scule, Scottish for school. Pre-17th cent.
• wee, ME. 15th cent.
• atweel, Scottish contraction of wot well. 1768.
• bukes, ME for books. 17th cent.
• peit, Scottish for lamb. 15th cent.
• aucht, Scottish for possession. 15th cent.

The antiquated vocabulary points to the song being much older than its 1827 collection. The tune is not specified. However, in the 1910s it was recorded in Tennessee, and the tune recorded. Most whites who moved to Tennessee in the 19th century were Scots-Irish. They brought with them a rich and distinct folk culture, including many European ballads and folk songs. Here's a good rendition of the song, performed by The Outside Track:



Catchy, right? Well, I listened to several versions of the song and was certain I knew the tune. The words weren't familiar, but the tune I had heard before. I hummed the first verse for both of my parents. My mom agreed that it seemed familiar, but my dad actually recognized it. It bears a striking similarity to this little number:



That was probably what I was thinking of, because I've heard "When I'm Gone" lots of times. I researched the song a little bit, and discovered that it was first recorded by the Carter family in 1931. Although A.P. Carter is listed as the writer, he was also a folk song collector, and this may very well have been a preexisting song. It's standard practice to list the collector of a folk song as the writer, in many cases. Here's their version, heard on the radio in 1931:



I'm not going to go into how the Carter Family tune wound up in Pitch Perfect; that's been discussed lots of places. You can watch the videos and come to your own conclusion, but I think that "When I'm Gone" has its origins in "The Fause Knight on the Road." The tunes are very similar, but certainly not identical. However, that is the nature of folk music. For example, our earliest known recording of "House of the Rising Sun" was sung by a Kentucky farmer's teenage daughter in the 1930s. It bears little resemblance to The Animals' version from the early '60s. Then compare it to the version sung on American Horror Story. Folk songs survive in their malleability. 

"The False Knight" was definitely being sung in Tennessee while A.P. Carter was collecting folk songs there. I don't know who wrote the lyrics to "When I'm Gone," but there they bear a phonetic similarity to "False Knight." Gaun, as I discussed earlier, is an old Scottish form of going, but it would have been pronounced gone. As antiquated words lose their meanings, lyrical changes become logical. Singing about a person being gone preserves the sound of the original lyrics, but also rewrites them totally.

Do you buy my theory? Let me know what you think.

Always,
Callie R.