Silver Dagger

So what's the definitive version of this old standard?

I was gonna make a poll of it, but I can't even begin to assemble all the different versions I know of this song.

Joan Baez? Dolly Parton? St Etienne?

Some other obscure version I haven't even heard?

One of my favourite versions is an a cappella version by the Devil's Interval but I can't even find that on YouTube and I can hardly play my wonky CD down the interweb for ya.

I love the Martha Tilston one that someone put on a Spotify playlist of Saint Etienne influences, even though her version came out a decade after Like a Motorway. Voice and arrangement are perfect. Baez is good too. Fleet Foxes have given it a shot as well. It's hard to screw up that song.

I'm partial to Dolly's version; this clip is excellent (listen to the band: like clockwork, even Dolly can't keep up) & the wordless coos on this & on the recorded version are superb.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=009vp-2bB84

I'd never even heard this version by the Caravelles before, it seems one of those things it's impossible to do a bad version of

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkNHjlAhI2c

I somehow got it into my head that Slowdive or Mojave 3 had done a version, but I think I'm conflating it in my head with their original song, Dagger. (Wishful thinking, as it would have been awesome.)

the first version i heard was the baez version -- that'll always be the "definitive" one for me.

I think the reason that I don't rate that one quite as highly is it doesn't have those amazing haunting harmonies on it. As stark and beautiful as the melody is, it's not actually the melody that does it for me, but the weird off-kilter harmonies that shouldn't quite work, and yet somehow do, and lift the whole thing into another level of sublime for me.

Like, even the Eagles version, though it has more harmonies, doesn't quite reach the heights that Parton's simple but effective echo does.

(I think that's what I like about the Devil's Interval version, is it takes that harmony as a base and goes even further out with it.)

love this song -- baez version might be my fave out of what I've heard.
actually saw robyn hitchcock do a great version live long ago.

Louvin Brothers

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GqOw99N3ODk

absolutely hate Joan Baez's voice so uh not that one

If we're talking quality harmonies there's absolutely no one that did close country harmony better than these dudes, they wrote the book on that shit.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AmlOFvz-NxI

man I really like their records and Pecknold has a great voice but ugh really don't like watching him

I didn't even get into looking for versions of Katie Dear but oh lord those are the kinds of harmonies I'm looking for, so close you can't get a paper knife between them.

Been avoiding the FF version because, well, creaky voice. Also I just prefer female vocalists in general, so my ideal version is obviously gonna be a ladysinger.

hmm can't imagine there's a female vocal version that's better than Dolly in that case

Mary Hopkin's version might be my favorite, despite her obvious debt to Joan Baez:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NEgwaTwaH-8

That's really nice.

some versions of 'Fair and Tender Ladies' (aka 'Little Sparrow' or 'Tiny Sparrow') are melodically similar to 'Silver Dagger'. I'm not sure if the tune originated in the US or the UK. Jeanette's Spanish version is lovely:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rRkGDhoPQD0

but her English version is slightly awkward; it's almost as if someone (probably not Jeanette, whose native language is English) translated the lyrics from English to Spanish and then (badly) back to English.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jYqkB2naOv0