Butcher Boy- Mrs. Russell (VT) 1942 Flanders
[Fragment from D33806c (Track 06c) a digitized archival cassette in the Helen Hartness Flanders Ballad Collection at Middlebury College Special Collections & Archives.
R. Matteson 2017]
Butcher Boy - voice performance by Mrs. Bert Russell at Newport (Vt.). Classification #: LAP24. Dated 09-20-1942. Sung to "How Dry I Am" tune.
In Jersey City where I did dwell,
A butcher boy I loved so well,
He courted me my heart away
But with me now he will not stay.
There is a house in yonder town,
Where my love goes and sits him down,
He took some strange girl on his knee
And he tells to her what he won't tell me.
A grief, a grief I'll tell you why,
She has more gold and silver than I,
Her gold will melt and her beauty will fly,
And the day will come, she'll be poor as I.