Delia's Gone - arranged & adapted by Marc Nerenberg - 14 Nov 2025

My distinctive version of “Delia's Gone”, telling the true story of the early 20th Century events behind the song (and not the garbled version that has come to us through multiple modifications over the years) has long been one of my “signature songs”.
But last week I realized that I hadn’t played it at all in 5 or 6 years, and hadn’t performed it in public for even longer than that.
So I decided to unearth it to play it as the opening song of this past Friday’s Yellow Door Hootenanny that I host weekly in downtown Montréal.
My arrangement, although it had evolved somewhat over time, had also become somewhat “set in stone” after a while, so it was nice to just loosen it up a bit and allow myself to experience it anew.
The improvised changes that emerged were subtle but real: little bits spoken rather than sung, flexible tempos - slowing down here and there, fewer repeated choruses - making the story flow more cleanly, a slightly more elaborate ending, and playing it on synthetic gut strings instead of steel. Since almost all of this was improvised in the moment, I’m not likely to do it exactly this way again, so this is sort of a one-of-a-kind performance.
This was played on a 1910 Fairbanks Banjo using mostly old-time two-finger picking, with occasional tiny bits of clawhammer technique. It was recorded on 14 November 2025 in Montréal Québec Canada.