Butcher Boy- B. Anderson (MO) 1928 Randolph A
[From: Ozark Folksongs, Vol. 1 British Ballads and Songs; 1946 by Vance Randolph. His notes follow and his four early sources are presumably from Belden.
R. Matteson 2017]
45. THE BUTCHER BOY
The "Butcher Boy" song is made up of modified extracts from at least four English pieces: see Cox (Folk-Songs of the South, 1925, p. 430) for a discussion of this matter. For American texts see Pound (American Ballads and, Songs, 1922, p. 60), Sandburg (American Songbag, 1927, p. 324), Spaeth (Weep Some More, My Lady, 1927, p. 128), Lunsford (Asheville Times, Asheville, N. C., Oct. 30, 1927, Bradley Kincaid (My Favorite Mountain Ballads, 1928, p. 43), Lomax (Cowboy Songs, 1916, p.397), Robison (Hill Country Songs and Ballads, 1929, p. 15), JAFL (29, 1916, p. 169; 31, 1918, p.73; 35, 1922, p. 360), Combs (Folk-Songs from the Kentucky Highlands, 1939, pp.30-31), Eddy (Ballad's and Songs from Ohio, 1939, pp. 129-131), Gardner (Ballads and Songs of Southern Michigan, 1939, pp. 117-119), Linscott (Folk Songs of Old, New England, 1939, pp. 179-181), Brewster (Ballads and Songs of Indiana, 1940, pp. 198-201) and the forthcoming Brown (North Carolina Folk-Lore Society) collection.
Compare Buell Kazee's phonograph record (Brunswick 213). A closely related piece called "There Is a Tavern in the Town" appeared in the Ditson College Song Book of 1885, with copyright credited to William H. Hills, as of 1883. As Spaeth (Life, June, 1935, p. 21) points out, the authorship of "There Is a Tavern in the Town" has recently been claimed by Rudy Vallee and others. For full information about the history of "The Butcher Boy" see Belden's headnote (Ballads and Songs, 1940, pp. 201-203).
A. [Butcher Boy] Sung by Mrs. Bessie Anderson, Powell, Mo., Aug. 30, 1928.
In yonder city there used to dwell
A butcher boy an' I loved him well,
He courted me my life away
But now with me he will not stay.
There is a house here in this town,
Where my love goes an' he sits down,
He takes a strange girl on his knee
An' tells her what he won't tell me.
An' I'll tell you the reason why,
It's because she's got more gold than I.
But her gold will melt an' her silver fly,
She'll see the day she's as pore as I.
She went upstairs to make her bed,
An' nothin' to her mother said,
She took a chair an' set her down
With pen an' ink to write it down.
At the end of the line she dropped a tear,
At the end of the verse cried Willie dear!
Her father come home an' the door he broke,
He found her a-hangin' by a rope,
He took his knife an' cut her down,
An' in her bosom these words was found:
Go dig my grave both wide an' deep,
Place a marble stone at my head an' feet,
An' on my breast place a turtle dove
To show the world I died of love.