On the Road to Fairfax County (4:44)

On The Road To Fairfax County (4:44)

Contact: David Massengill
(212) 533-6297
davidwmassengill@gmail.com

Songwriter: David Massengill
Publishing & PRO: David Massengill Music/Warner/Chappell Music, Inc. (ASCAP)

Release Date: April 28, 1992

Produced By: Steve Addabbo

Musicians:
David Massengill: Mountain Dulcimer
Steve Addabbo: 12 String Acoustic Guitar
Larry Campball: Guitar, Cittern, Violin
Chris Bishop: Bass

"Joan Baez, The Roches and Dave Bromberg have recorded “On the Road to Fairfax County,” a tale of an 18th century highwayman and his love, a song that has sometimes been mistaken for a traditional ballad.

While experimenting with a reverse Mixolydian dulcimer tuning I chanced on four descending chords as I went down the scale and they sounded ancient. I kept playing them over and over and then wrote an answering ascending melody line. That one sounded old too. Where shall I go now I thought and just for heck of it I went up one note shy of an octave and came down nice and slow and answered it again like it was old as the hills. I kept trying to write the old lyrics to match the old tune I had chanced upon. While awaiting my lyric muse I wrote an alternating melody but only for the first two lines of the four line melody. I decided no chorus and that maybe the alternating melody which went up instead of down would fool people into listening. I tried many stories and late late one night at 5 AM I thought to myself what's the oldest story there is? Then I wrote O once I loved an outlaw he came and stole my heart. Well maybe that's ok let's see how do I answer? O how I count the years (no) days (no) hours since we were torn apart. I looked at the verse and said Aha! I'm a woman! The whole story was right there so I went to bed right then promising myself not to go soft on a happy ending when I continued writing the next day. The hero must die I promised myself. It was a deep and satisfying sleep and I woke up to write the nine concluding and tragic verses in an afternoon." ~ David Massengill


"Someone asked me what the high point was for me at the Newport Folk Festival. Upon five seconds reflection I told him it was listening to David Massengill sing his songs to us that night. It was just like letting an uncontaminated mountain stream run over me. When you sang Fairfax County I was reminded of the hundreds of times people have said to me 'There's just something so special about those old ballads-'. The special thing about that old ballad is that it was written by you, David M, and you give it life, and you give me the refreshing kind of beauty I'd almost forgotten about." ~ Joan Baez