The Lady in the Black Dress

Robert James

A few years ago I was working on a 50/90 and I was stuck for lyrics. While hunting for ideas I Googled “New England folk tales” and found a few stories that I was able to use as a loose idea for a song lyric. I was trying to write lyrics for this year’s RPM Challenge yesterday and I was stuck again. This time I Googled “New England ghost stories” and one of the hits was a boston.com article with four stories. I’ve used three of them for song ideas. This is one of them. A woman who broke into a fort to rescue her husband who was a captured Confederate soldier. It didn’t go well.

This is also the first example of a change to my RPM Challenge process. Back in January I started collecting little guitar riffs and phrases and the occasional chord change. I’ve never used material worked on pre-February before (well, there was that one song in 2014) and it feels a little like cheating. Doubly so because I usually try to do FAWM every February as well, and this one doesn’t technically qualify. Oh well.

The guitars are all Gibson SG into a Fender Deluxe Reverb. There is a Wampler Tumnus and an MXR Phase 95 in there too.
lyrics
Did you see the woman in the black dress
Footsteps in the snow were going nowhere

Don’t let her touch you
She’ll try to hurt you
She’s out for revenge
She’s back for revenge

Sentenced to death by hanging
she made one request
She wanted to die like a lady
could they get her a dress