I’ve been seeing reviews of a new biography of Aimee Semple McPherson, and they reminded me of this comic ballad, which I hadn’t thought about in years, or maybe decades… so I tried to sing it, found I still knew all the words, and here it is.

I learned it from one of my favorite Pete Seeger records, 3 Saints, 4 Sinners and 6 Other People, which I just learned was a reissue of Story Songs, his first album for Columbia Records back in 1961. That was a big deal, because Columbia was the most major of major record labels and Seeger was not only blacklisted but under indictment for contempt of Congress and potentially facing ten years in jail. Apparently he was signed on John Hammond’s instigation, and that signing was one of the reasons Bob Dylan signed with Hammond soon afterwards. I learned most of the songs on that album, and have already posted about “Way Out There,” “Hobo’s Lullaby,” and “Pretty Boy Floyd” (I could have learned the latter songs elsewhere, but considering how early I had this album and how often I listened to it, it’s a definite maybe.)

As for Aimee McPherson, she was one of the most famous evangelical preachers of the early twentieth century, with a ministry in Los Angeles and a popular radio program. She was known for miraculous faith healing and for welcoming a racially integrated congregation, was altogether a pretty fascinating figure, and there’s lots more about her on the internet, as well as that new biography, for people who want to know more.

The song is a witty retelling of a story that did serious damage to McPherson’s career and continues to be disputed. The short version is that she went swimming at Ocean Park, disappeared, and for over a month everyone thought she must have drowned… but then she appeared in Agua Prieta, Sonora, with a story that she had been kidnapped and held prisoner, then escaped and walked almost twenty miles through the desert to find help. The press pounced on this story, alleging that she’d actually spent the month in a lovers’ tryst with her radio operator, Kenneth Ormiston, and she was investigated, along with her mother, facing charges of conspiracy, perjury, and obstruction of justice. In the end, the case was dismissed and she wrote a memoir, went back to preaching, and remained a popular figure until her death in 1944, though many people remembered the story preserved in this ditty, which was followed by further allegations about her gaudy personal life.

The song has most of its details right — granting that they were scurrilous rumors, never proved in court — only tripping over Ormiston’s name, which it gives as Ray Armistad. Seeger wrote that he learned it from John Lomax, Jr., the eldest son of the pioneering folklorist, who learned it in California in the 1930s, “from a hobo, I think John said.” He didn’t know who originally composed it, and added, “if any reader knows… I hope they’ll let me know.” Apparently no one did.

And finally… for those tempted by the invitation in the final verse, the ever-reliable Wikipedia provides a photograph of the fabled cottage in Carmel-by-the-Sea: