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The Hills of Shiloh

[Shel Silverstein, Jim Friedman]

Shel Silverstein and Jim Friedman wrote The Hills of Shiloh in 1963.

June Tabor sang The Hills of Shiloh in 2011 on her second album with the Oysterband, Ragged Kingdom.

Martin Simpson sang Hills of Shiloh in 2019 on his Topic album Rooted. He noted:

From 1977 to 1988, I worked with June Tabor. We performed a very wide selection of material including a set of songs from, or inspired by, the American Civil War. June performed Shel Silverstein’s Hills of Shiloh in that set, a song which portrays a broken woman whose partner has been killed in the war, a fact that she cannot accept after 40 years.

Silverstein was a great writer and illustrator of children’s books and a very successful writer of songs. A Boy Named Sue, Sylvia’s Mother and The Ballad of Lucy Jordan are among his best known. Mick Peat of Derby suggested that I should record the song. Thank you, Mick.

More Maids sang Hills of Shiloh on their 2021 CD Fourmaids. They noted:

A woman is waiting for her husband to return from the American Civil War, unable to accept the fact that the war has been over for forty years. A grim reflection of the aftermaths of the war.

Lyrics

June Tabor sings The Hills of Shiloh

Have you seen Amanda Blaine in the Hills of Shiloh?
Walking in the morning rain in the Hills of Shiloh?
Have you seen her at her door
Listening for the cannon roar
And the man who went to war from the Hills of Shiloh?

Have you seen her standing there in the Hills of Shiloh?
Wind a-blowing through her hair in the Hills of Shiloh?
Listening for the sound of guns,
Listening for the rolling drums
And the man who never comes to the Hills of Shiloh?

Have you seen Amanda’s eyes in the Hills of Shiloh?
Have you heard her mournful cries in the Hills of Shiloh?
Have you seen her running down,
Searching through the sleeping town
In her yellowed wedding gown in the Hills of Shiloh?

Have you heard Amanda sing in the Hills of Shiloh?
Whispered to her wedding ring in the Hills of Shiloh?
Heard her humming soft and low,
Poor Amanda doesn’t know
Twas ended forty years ago in the Hills of Shiloh.