Butcher's Boy- Ben Rice (MO) 1937 LOC REC
[From Library of Congress recording AFS 03224 A01. California Gold: Northern California Folk Music from the Thirties: https://memory.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/r?ammem/AMALL:@field(NUMBER+@band(afccc+butch))
There are number of mistakes in the transcription some of which I've corrected and several footnoted the changes.
R. Matteson 2017]
THE BUTCHER'S BOY- sung by Ben Rice of Springfield, Missouri. recorded by Sidney Robertson Jan. 1937
It matters no not where I do dwell
Where the butcher's boy that I love so well
He stole from me my heart away
And then with me he would not stay[1].
There is a place called town
Where my love goes and there sits down
He takes a strange girl on his knee
He tells to her what he won't tell me.
He loves her the best, and the reason why
Is because she's got more gold than
Her gold will melt, her silver fly
She'll see the day she's as poor as I.
She went up stairs to make her bed
And not a word to her mother said,
Her mother followed after her
To[2] find what's the matter with her daughter dear.
Oh mother, oh mother, you need not know
That pain and sorrow, grief and woe
No one, no one, no one but I
Shall ever wed the butcher's boy.
She called her chair to sit her down
A pen and ink for to write this down
At the end of every word she shed a tear
At the end was of every word she cried, "Oh, my dear!"
What a foolish, what a foolish girl am I
To hang myself for the butcher's boy.
In a very short time her father came home
Inquiring where his daughter had gone
He run upstairs-- the door he broke,
He found her hanging to a rope.
He took his knife and cut her down
And in her bosom, a note was found
And on the note these lines [were] wrote
For the butcher's boy my heart was broke.
Go dig my grave so strong and deep
Place a marble stone at my head and feet
And on my breast place a snowy-white turtle dove
To show to the world that I died for love.
1. transcription has "pay"
2. transcription has "In and"