"Sea Lion Woman" (also "Sea-Line Woman", "See Lyin' Woman", "She Lyin' Woman", "See-Line Woman", or "C-Line Woman") is a traditional American folk song originally used as a children's playground song.
The exact origins of the song are unknown but it is believed to have originated in the southern United States. It was first recorded by folklore researcher Herbert Halpert on May 13, 1939. Halpert was compiling a series of field recordings for the Library of Congress in Byhalia, MS, when he ran across Walter Shipp, a minister, and his wife Mary, a choir director of a local church. Halpert recorded Shipp's daughters, Katharine and Christeen, singing a sparse version of "Sea Lion Woman" that defined the basic rhymes and rhythm of the song.
Notable covers include a version by Nina Simone (1964) under the name See-Line Woman, Ollabelle's version featured in the 2006 album Riverside Battle Songs under the name See Line Woman and Feist's cover featured in the 2007 album The Reminder. The Easybeats also recorded it, the song closing their 1967 album Friday On My Mind. A version remixed by Greg Hale Jones and Russell Ziecker entitled She Began To Lie, contains extracts from the original traditional song performed by the Shipp sisters and was used on the soundtrack of the 1999 feature film The General's Daughter.
Read more about Sea Lion Woman: Lyrics, Nina Simone Version, Feist Version, Bob Sinclar Version
Famous quotes containing the words sea, lion and/or woman:
“All the morning we had heard the sea roar on the eastern shore, which was several miles distant.... It was a very inspiriting sound to walk by, filling the whole air, that of the sea dashing against the land, heard several miles inland. Instead of having a dog to growl before your door, to have an Atlantic Ocean to growl for a whole Cape!”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The lion cares less about being king of the beasts than about finding his dinner.”
—Mason Cooley (b. 1927)
“Your mock saint who stands in a niche is not a woman if she have not suffered, still less a woman if she have not sinned. Fall at the feet of your idol as you wish, but drag her down to your level after that—the only level she should ever reach, that of your heart.”
—Emmuska, Baroness Orczy (1865–1947)