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about

One of my favorite writers, Louise Erdrich, created a semi-feral female character in the book The Master Butchers' Singing Club. There is a similar character in her first children's novel, The Birchbark House. She also has a crazy magical but destructive character in several other novels, Fleur Pillager. I liked these on-the-fringes women and somehow connected them with a dream I had had.

In the dream, some friends and I are staying in a mountain cabin and we find a couple of bear cubs. They bring the cubs into the cabin and I tell them we better get the cubs to the mom or she'll come in and kill us.

We get the cubs out and get out of the way, and the mom comes out of the woods and calls to the two cubs. They go to her and one of them crawls up on her back and clings to her fur and they all three disappear into the woods. As the mom and her rider disappear, the riding cub turns into a little naked girl with thick black chin length hair.

I imagined the little girl growing up and becoming like these women in the Erdrich books.

lyrics

Mad Hattie

I saw Mad Hattie again last night
She walked into Sawyer's, she didn't look right
Nobody would look at her straight.

People look down when Hattie lets loose
People in this town got no use for the truth
And Hattie, she never learned how to lie.

She cuts right through the stories you tell
One eye's heaven, the other's hell
Mad Hattie.

Hattie said when she was six her mama took off
Left the girl sleeping on a quilt in the sun
She said, "Hattie, I'll be back in a while."
A black bear quiet as a shadow appeared,
She said, "Come on with me, Girl, and don't be scared."
So Hattie climbed up and she held on tight.
She never looked back, she never cried
The wildwood sounds was her lullaby
Mad Hattie

Hattie come to town for some sugar and salt
The widow Bodine in a black silk frock saw her coming,
and she tried to sidestep,
But Hattie caught her up by the crook of her arm
Fixed her with a look, and the widow fell down in the dirt -
Hattie clutched at her shirt.
She coughed up a shadow, the widow prayed,
The shadow laughed and sang as it ran away,
"Mad Hattie!"

If you see Hattie, would you give her my best?
Keep me on the good side of a woman like that
Miss Hattie, Miss Hattie of the deep, dark woods.
Widow Bodine says since that day
The pain in her heart has gone away
'Cause Hattie is special that way.
When she hears wild singing in the night
She smiles 'cause she knows Hattie's alright -
Mad Hattie!

credits

from Colville (ten songs), released January 29, 2012
Jane Selkye: words and music, vocal and guitar
Chris Kee: acoustic bass

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Springhouse California

Music from the Americana Borderlands - from artsong to the roadhouse and places in between:
Chris Kee and Jane Selkye met in the San Francisco band Me Jane, and have played with David Phillips in various
groups for the last twenty years. ... more

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