Gillian Welch goes outside to do the day’s work, when a rider with a blood-black gunshot wound crashes through the willows. The rider is her wayward son. After two verses, she repeats the whole song in two lines: “One morning, one morning/the boy of my breast/came to my arms, unable to rest/leaving me in the arms of death.” The banjo is the very sound of violence and terror and worry and sorrow. One of those perfect songs.