Julie by Rhiannon Giddens

Album: Freedom Highway (2017)

License This Song

Songfacts®:

This is a track from Rhiannon Giddens' second solo studio album Freedom Highway. The record has a loose theme running through it showing different aspects of the African-American experience.
Set during the Civil War this song imagines a conversation between the woman of the house and a slave called Julie as union troops approach a plantation. The mistress begs Julie to protect their families riches, but the slave answers, mistress "That trunk of gold is what you got when my children you sold."

Giddens told Uncut: "'Julie' was the focus for me in a lot of ways, just in terms of who these women are in history who don't have voices, who don't have books written about them or movies made about them."

"Particularly in the slave experience, it's so often men who are talked about and their women are the reasons to do things, like the Nate Parker movie (The Birth of a Nation). They don't have their own agency in the stories, and that's something that has been bothering me, so all the protagonists slave narrative songs on the record are women. That was important to me."
Giddens told Uncut about the background to "Julie."

"I started writing that song some years ago," she recalled. "I read this book by Andrew Ward called The Slaves War: The Civil War In The Words Of Former Slaves, and I was moved to start writing songs. I wasn't much of a songwriter at that point. I had written a couple of exercise songs, a blues so whatever, but these songs started to come out of me. Julie was the first one. I wrote it on my banjo. It had been sitting there for a while until it just seems like the right time to do something with it."

Comments: 4

To Michael From New Jersey from VancouverRhiannon Giddens in another article states that the Union soldiers were who would come to free enslaved peoples in America. Therefore Julie's mistress tells her to essentially go run and hide so that she is not freed. When Julie responds that she will not go (showing that she wants to be freed) the mistress then tries to change her tactics. Therefore when she says "you won't go" it's almost as if she is saying "you wouldn't dare leave me and all you know". The gold trunk is also an interesting line I didn't understand until I read Gidden's article. Giddens states that the mistress asks Julie to lie and say the gold is hers. However Julie replies she "won't lie", or rather doesn't need to, as the gold SHOULD belong to her as the mistress got it when she sold Julie's children at a slave auction. Therefore, Julie is again showing her mistress that she does not love her, and that the mistress has done so many things against Julie. The song seems to show the ignorance of slave owners of the time, and their ideas of their slaves loving them.

Below is linked the article if you would like to hear it from Gidden's herself.
bit.ly/3RhJ9Kp
Michael from New JerseyI must be dense. I know I am because Ms. Giddens is brilliant so it must be me. Why did the mistress tell Julie to run? Are they Union soldiers who would free Julie? Then why does mistress ask her to stay in 2 verses? Is it like “well if you refuse to go, then at least say the gold is yours so they don’t confiscate it.”?
Ken from E2e 1p9The tune is similar to lay me down in the river by The Fortunate Ones from Newfoundland. But hey that's folk music eh?
Michelle from NevadaBeautiful and haunting song.

see more comments

More Songfacts:

BailandoEnrique Iglesias

Enrique Iglesias' single "Bailando" was the first ever Spanish-language song to reach one billion views on YouTube.

Strawberry Letter 23The Brothers Johnson

"Strawberry Letter 23" by The Brothers Johnson was written by Shuggie Otis, whose girlfriend would send him letters written on strawberry-scented paper.

Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)Kate Bush

The Kate Bush song "Running Up That Hill" is about making a deal with God to switch lives with your partner so there would be no more misunderstandings.

Beverly HillsWeezer

Weezer frontman Rivers Cuomo wrote "Beverly Hills" after seeing a photo of the group Wilson Phillips and imagining what it would be like to marry someone famous.

Coming HomeDiddy - Dirty Money

"Coming Home" by Diddy - Dirty Money was originally iwritten for for T.I., who was getting out of prison at the time.

"Kickstart My Heart" is about all the ways Motley Crue gets their blood flowing without drugs. It was inspired by their bass player Nikki Sixx, who claimed he had to be revived with a shot of adrenaline to the heart after an overdose.