about
This was a hard challenge for me; it was my wife who cracked the concept. Most of my best ideas are the ones I steal from her. Credit where credit is due.
Most people are familiar with the song “Tom Dooley.” If you only know one murder ballad (and two chords), this is probably the one you know. But the real-life story behind it is far less familiar, and it is this story upon which I base my song. Here you can find a scan of pages from “The Folk Songs of North America,” by Alan Lomax:
drive.google.com/file/d/1o6ykoYY4DzWdrBX0czt8BDwGchI2h1fp/view?usp=sharing
I will summarize the story as I understand it here, paraphrasing heavily, for your convenience.
Tom Dula returned to North Carolina after the Civil War, and became a serious womanizer, cutting “a wide swathe among the ladies” in his community. He took up with Laura Foster, from whom he caught what Lomax tactfully describes as “a disease.” I’m taking the liberty of adding my own interpretation to this, but I’m assuming it was syphilis, or something similarly sexually transmitted and hard to get rid of with the medicine of the day. He didn’t realize his infection until he had moved on to his next girl, Ann Melton. Lomax doesn’t specify, but I assume that Melton also contracted the disease, because they both immediately conspired to murder Laura Foster for revenge. Dula lured Laura out of town with promises to marry her; after he got her drunk and restrained her, Melton ambushed her with a knife, and they buried her in a shallow grave on a hillside. After the body was discovered about six weeks later, both Dula and Melton were arrested and charged with murder.
The trial was a mess from the beginning. Dula, very much in love and trying to defend his girl, refused to admit that Melton had been involved with the murder at all; and Melton’s disarming charm and considerable good looks made it difficult for the men of the jury to see her as the cold-blooded killer that she clearly was. In the end, Ann Melton got off relatively easily with a short prison sentence, while Tom Dula was sentenced to death by hanging. He wrote the song about his execution himself, conspicuously omitting any mention of Ann Melton in his lyric.
So, that’s the original story. My version of it is set in modern day New York City, and is unapologetically patterned after Law and Order: SVU. The outcome of this case changes radically with the introduction modern forensic technology; the detectives would have been able to put Melton at the crime scene, and her hand on the murder weapon, whether Dula testified or not. (I took the liberty of assuming that a modern-day Ann Melton would already have her prints in the system for previous offenses; I have no idea whether this accurately reflects her historical personality.)
lyrics
It was just another Sunday
New York City, early fall
I was halfway through my second cup
When my partner caught the call
There’s a Jane Doe on a park bench
With her throat cut open wide
So we hopped into the cruiser,
For to find who made her die.
Well, forensics had things well in hand
By the time we came around
Blood pooled on the sidewalk,
And the murder weapon found.
We all commenced to canvas;
Every case begins the same…
The coffee shop IDed her -
Laura Foster was her name.
We soon tracked down a roommate
At the college down the street
When we told her what transpired,
Lord, she didn’t miss a beat.
She said, “I’ll tell you just what had happened,
And I’ll tell you who to blame.”
And the fires of hell shone in her eyes
When she spoke the bastard’s name:
She said, “I know Tom Dooley done it.
There is no doubt in my mind.
He’s been stepping out on Laurie,
And she called him out last night.
Oh, I know Tom Dooley done it -
Poor Laurie should have run!
I hope that boy will hang for what he’s done.
Then we brought him to the station
And we asked him to confess
But he stumbled over details
And his story was a mess
Then the ME called us over
With a strange look in her eye;
When we said we knew he’s lying,
She said, “I can tell you why.”
She said, I know Tom Dooley done it!
Lord, I know it in my bones.
We got DNA to prove it -
But he didn’t work alone.
Oh, I know Tom Dooley done it!
We should lock him up for life -
But I know there’s an accomplice
'Cause their prints are on the knife.
Asking question after question,
As he shouldered all the blame -
And no matter how we pushed him,
Wouldn’t give his partner’s name.
“You best tell us who you worked with
If you want to save your hide!”
But he wouldn’t change his story -
He just hung his head and cried.
“Oh, we know Tom Dooley done it,”
Says captain. “Thats a fact.
But we ran those prints this morning,
And we just now got ‘em back.
There’s a woman named Ann Melton,
And she just ran out of luck -
Seems you got rour second killer, boys.
Head on down and pick her up.”
Seems Ann Melton was the woman
Tom was seeing on the side,
And the two of them conspired
On the night that Laura died.
Tom took Laura to the park bench,
It was Ann who swung the blade.
And so the curtain falls on courtroom walls
And the words of the ADA:
She says, “I know Tom Dooley done it.
We will prove beyond a doubt,
With the help of young Ann Melton,
They took Laura Foster out.
Oh, I know Tom Dooley done it,
And the charge is murder one -
Lord, I hope they both will hang for what they done.”
credits
license
