In the pines, in the pines

Nobody wrote this song. “Where Did You Sleep Last Night” — also sung as “In the Pines” and “Black Girl” — came out of Southern Appalachia sometime in the 1870s, author unknown, and has been passed from voice to voice ever since. Lead Belly didn’t originate it, but he claimed it: between 1944 and 1948 he recorded at least half a dozen versions, each one a little different, his twelve-string ringing under that question a jealous lover keeps asking and dreading the answer to.

The song works because it withholds everything. A girl who slept where the sun never shines, a man whose head was found in the driving wheel — fragments of two old songs fused into one, with the connecting story lost somewhere along the way. What’s left is pure atmosphere: pines, cold wind, shivering all night through.

Half a century after Lead Belly, Kurt Cobain closed Nirvana’s MTV Unplugged set with it, introducing Lead Belly as his favorite performer. That version ends in a scream; this one never raises its voice. Sit with the older one a while — the chill is the same.