revival at a very young age, 

I automatically thought this 

must be from that era of 

musicians, gleaming what-

ever they can from Harry 

Smith ’s Anthology of Ameri-

can Folk Music.

But as the song winds up, 

the guitar becomes more 

intricate. In addition, the 

voice is beyond anything I’ve 

ever heard before. It is gentle 

and soothing like the chime 

of a wind-up snow globe, yet 

there’s a fire burning under-

neath, an urgency to her 

tone and lyrics that beg the 

listener to lean in. A minute 

in, the song kicks into high 

gear, with elaborate picking 

patterns, a faster tempo and 

that voice jumping all over 

the scales, pontificating on 

the demure lifestyle of flow-

ers in the valley.

I’m spellbound. I close my 

Google Doc and immediately 

pine to know who this elu-

sive folk icon is. Maybe it’s a 

modern-day contemporary 

of Joan Baez, distorting the 

recording to sound lofi and 

InDiE. The song is “I Have 

Considered the Lilies” from 

the album How Sad, How 

Lovely by Connie Converse. 

The name alone casts me 

back to middle school, where 

I began my trend of always 

wearing high top Converse 

sneakers, despite their lack 

of an arch that made my feet 

ache constantly.

A quick Google search 

shows Converse to be a folk 

musician — my musical era 

guess was correct— but from 

earlier than Baez, Dylan 

and the ’60s folk revival in general. 

In using one of my 10 precious, free 

monthly articles to find out more, the 

essay “Connie Converse’s Time Has 

Come” by music historian Howard 

Fishman in The New Yorker paints 

her as a leading pioneer in the sing-

er-songwriter movement of the late 

’50s. However, few knew who she 

was until the late 2000s. This con-

fuses me. How can a musician be a 

pioneer without garnering a certain 

amount of fame? However, the article 

quickly informs me Converse walked 

into obscurity, quitting music in 1961, 

so the likes of Dylan, Baez and more 

could run.

There are so many stories of fans 

wanting to find their idols who don’t 

want to be found. Luckily, if it was the 

early ’60s and I was obsessed with 

Converse as I am now, I wouldn’t 

have to look very far to meet her. After 

leaving New York in ’61, Converse 

moved to Ann Arbor.
C

rucial to telling Converse’s 

story is the acknowl-

edgement that she was 

a remarkably talented learner — 

adapting and achieving mastery in 

anything she set her mind to. Hers is 

also a story of what-ifs. As someone 

encountering her story some 50 years 

later, I read every crossroad Converse 

encountered like a Choose Your Own 

Adventure book. I want to tell her, 

“Just stick it out, the folk revival is 

around the corner! Don’t leave New 

York just yet!” But history doesn’t 

afford those privileges.

Born Elizabeth Eaton Converse in 

1924, she grew up in Laconia, N.H. 

and excelled in nearly every field of 

academic study, eventually earning 

the title of valedictorian of her high 

school class. With a full-ride schol-

arship to Mount Holyoke College, a 

private women’s liberal arts college in 

South Hadley, Massachusetts, Con-

verse seemed destined to thrive in 

higher education.

Wednesday, January 23, 2019 // The Statement 

WORDS BY MATT HARMON, STATEMENT DEPUTY EDITOR 
ART BY BREE ANDRUZZI, CONTRIBUTING ARTIST
On Connie Converse, considering the lilies

See CONNIE, Page 6B

