Nellie Kane – Fiddle Tune a Day – Day 217

Tonight was the first time I heard the tune, Nellie Kane. I was playing a show at the Rock Inn in Estes Park, CO with the band “Rich with Friends.” I was really hoping that we would do a tune that I could use for Fiddle Tune a Day. We played Wayfaring Stranger, which is a great tune, but I recorded it a couple of weeks ago.

And, when we played Nellie Kane, I thought “This one could work.” So, when we finished the show, we came together to replay Nellie Cane for the remaining audience, and for day 216 of Fiddle Tune a Day.

It looks to me that Nellie Cane was written by Gillian Welch with lyrics by Caleb Meyer. If you have more info on this, please fill me in.

Upon further research, Nellie Kane was published by Tim O’Brien, and was on the 1979 Hot Rize Album. Gillian Welch published a tune called Caleb Meyer where Nellie Kane kills Caleb Meyer with a broken bottle. Bluegrass music is just so HAPPY!

Nellie Cane Lyrics

As a young man I went ridin

Out on the western plains

In the state of North Dakota

I met my Nellie Cane, met my Nellie Cane

She was livin in a lonely cabin

Had a son by another man

Five years she had waited for him

As long as a woman can, as long as a woman can

Chorus:

I don’t know what changed my mind

Till then I was the ramblin kind

The kind of love I can’t explain

That I had for Nellie Cane

She took me on to work that day

To help her till the land

In the afternoon we planted seeds, in the evening we held hands

In the evening we held hands

Her blue eyes told me everything a man would want to know

It was then I realized I would never go,

I would never go

Chorus: I don’t know…

Well many years have gone by

And the son has grown up tall

I became a father to him

She became my all, She became my all

Chorus: I don’t know… end