Meatballs on Old Smokey mountain.
There’s this song, I’m sure you know it.
On Top of Spaghetti is a frivolous children’s ditty about the fate of a meatball that rolls off a mound of spaghetti because someone sneezed.
The lyrics are by singer Tom Glazer (who’d regretted writing it to his dying day), but the tune is actually a traditional Appalachian song called On Top of Old Smokey.
The original lyrics are far more serious, even bitter. Old Smoky is a mountain where a girl was being courted, but she played hard-to-get for too long, and the boy went away. The song is her regret.
I found myself believing that both sets of lyrics were actually the same story, and so I’ve composed a ballad music all of my own to tell it.
Once upon a time, there was a mountain so high it was covered in snow even during the summer months. On the mountain lived a young man Quillar. And a pretty young woman named Emaly. Names in these mountain parts were usually unusual. Quillar took a liking to Emaly and asked her to come spend time with him. He wasn’t shy. Like most boys who lived alone, Quillar cooked his own meals. But unlike most, he was good at it. His evenings with Emaly, sometimes they’d just be in his log house and eat a supper he’d make. Not the flat boiled elk that most people ate that time of year, but Quillar made good elk stew and meatballs with thought put into it. And he’d sing while cooking, Quillar could sing any song, heard it once.
Secretly those were Emaly’s favorite times, but only secretly because she didn’t want him to know how much she was enjoying herself. One time Quillar brought home a strange food he’d seen in town, spugsgetti he’d call it that townfolk ate. Emaly still recalls everything about that cosy night when they’d boiled the stringy, slippery food and ate it with a sauce and elk meatballs. They’d lost one of the meatballs – so much pepper in the air from the mysterious cooking, Emaly gave a little sneeze and her pretty hand knocked off a raw meatball from the kitchen table. It rolled out the door and Quillar’s dog Dusty ate it right up. Quillar laughed and said better than cooked meat for a dog anyhow, then he made up a little song about it. It was the best meal anyone ever made for her, don’t tell momma that.
Like always, Quillar did most of the talking that night. Only when he’d asked her a direct question did she respond, best she knew how but he’d talk about these things she was too shy to say she knew nothing of. Through that summer, he’d talk and she’d mostly listen, mostly. And one day he asked her to marry him. Caught her by surprise. She was watching Dusty lay down all content, paw his own snout, half paying attention to Quillar talk about mending fences when she realized, he asked if she’d be his wife. Momma told her this would happen. But she didn’t think it would be this soon. She wasn’t sure to tell him or not she wasn’t sure but she did enjoy his company. So she replied, he sure was handy in the kitchen.
Only a few weeks left of summer, they had all their evenings together after Quillar came home from the fence mending work. When the first leaves started to fall, Quillar left the Old Smokey mountain. She realized only afterwards that he had said goodbye. He’d written out some cooking notes, recipes really, on spare paper, said so she could make them anytime she wanted to eat that food again. If she had paid attention, she’d know that he meant he wasn’t going to be around to make it anymore.
Now years later she wonders, is Quillar happy and did he find a wife, a woman likes that singing all the time and funny new food to surprise you and Dusty at your feet all content. A wife who shows how much she’s enjoying herself when she sings that meatball song and makes them just that old way.
Postscript. The original version of this six-word story as printed in the wall calendar is “I still make meatloaf that way.” Interestingly, I misremembered the story when I came to write the music one year later (yes, this project began over a year ago). I wonder if Quillar ever made meatloaf.
