Breedloves's Folk Songs

PACK UP YOUR SORROWS

  • PACK UP YOUR SORROWS
    Richard Fariña wrote and mixed with the bohemians at the White Horse Tavern, the
    legendary Greenwich Village haunt frequented by poets, artists, folksingers, and
    wayfarers, where he befriended Tommy Makem. It was there that he met Carolyn Hester,
    a successful folk singer. They had a whirlwind courtship and married eighteen days later.
    Fariña appointed himself Hester’s agent; they toured worldwide while Fariña worked on
    his novel and Carolyn performed gigs. Fariña was present when Hester recorded her third
    album at Columbia studios in September 1961, where a then-unknown Bob Dylan played
    harmonica on several tracks. Fariña became a close friend of Dylan’s; their friendship is a
    central topic of David Hajdu’s Pulitzer Prize-winning book “Positively 4th Street”.
    In Europe, Fariña met Mimi Baez, the teenage sister of Joan Baez in the spring of 1962.
    Hester divorced Fariña shortly thereafter, and Fariña married 17-year-old Mimi in April
    1963. They moved to a tiny cabin in Carmel, California, where they composed songs on a
    guitar and appalachian dulcimer. They debuted their act as “Richard & Mimi Fariña” at
    the Big Sur Folk Festival in 1964 and were signed to Vanguard Records. His best-known
    songs are “Pack Up Your Sorrows” and “Birmingham Sunday”, the latter of which was
    recorded by Joan Baez and has become more well-known after it became the theme song
    to Spike Lee‘s 4 Little Girls”, a documentary about the 1963 16th Street Baptist Church
    bombing in Alabama.
    Refrain:
    Well, if somehow you could pack up your sorrows,
    And give them all to me.
    You would lose them, I know how to use them,
    Give them all to me.
    (Refrain)
    No use cryin’, talking to a stranger,
    Namin’ the sorrows you’ve seen;
    Oh, ’cause there are too many bad times,
    Too many sad times,
    Nobody knows what you mean.
    {Refrain}
    No use ramblin’ walkin’ in the shadows,
    Trailin’ a wanderin’ star.
    No one beside you, no one to hide you,
    An’ nobody knows where you are.
    {Refrain}
    No use roamin’, walking by the roadside,
    Seekin’ a satisfied mind.
    Ah, ’cause there are too many highways,
    Too many byways,
    Nobody’s walkin’ behind.
    {Refrain}
     You would lose them, I know how to use them,
    Give them all to me

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