This song, including the other tracks from the album, was recorded at ‘Oceanway and The Doghouse’ in Nashville, and at ‘Schnee Studios’ in Los Angeles.
In order to match the success of her previous album, The Grass is Blue, Dolly used the band Nickel Creek and the backing vocals of Alison Krauss[3] to create a new innovative bluegrass sound.
It was also written as a tribute, and dedicated, to her father who told her these wild stories in the Great Smoky Mountains.
The song follows a beautiful female protagonist – referred to as a Mountain Angel –who is corrupted by a passerby who she falls in love with and marries.
There’s talk about her having a child that didn’t make it past birth, which she mourns from the mountains, by howling.
The juxtaposition is also made, the young girl who was pale and beautiful, who was loved by her family and the wider community, to this deranged woman who lost all she had.
The instrumentation includes three guitars, a double bass, a mandolin, a violin, a banjo, a fiddle, a dulcimer, two whistles, and two backing vocalists.