"Copper Kettle", also known as "Get you a Copper Kettle" or "In the pale moonlight"
is a song composed by Albert Frank Beddoe and made popular by Joan Baez.
Pete Seeger dates the song to 1946, mentioning its probable folk origin.
In a 1962 Time readers column A. F. Beddoe says that the song was written by him in 1953 as part of the folk opera Go Lightly, Stranger. The song praises the good aspects of moonshining as told to the listener by a man whose "daddy made whiskey, and granddaddy did too". The line "We ain't paid no whiskey tax since 1792" alludes to an unpopular tax imposed in 1791 by the fledgling U.S. Federal Government. The levy provoked the Whiskey Rebellion and generally had a short life, barely lasting until 1803. It was recorded by Joan Baez on Joan Baez in Concert (1962), Two Tones (a duet including Gordon Lightfoot) on Two Tones at the Village Corner(1962), The Country Gentlemen (1963), Chet Atkins on Guitar Country (1964), Bob Dylan on Self Portrait (1970) and Another Self Portrait (2013), and others. It was printed in The Joan Baez Songbook (1964). |