Butcher's Boy- Inez Gibson (AR) 1956 Parler G
[From Ozark Folksong Collection; Reel 311, Item 5. Collected by Mary C. Parler.
Listen: http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/1256/rec/10
R. Matteson 2017]
Butcher's Boy- sung by Inez Gibson of Fayetteville, Ark. on May 18, 1956. "My mother taught me."
In London City, where I did dwell,
Lived a butcher's boy I loved so well.
He courted me my life away,
And with me then he wouldn't stay.
There is a strange house in this town
Where my love goes and then sets down,
He takes another girl on his knee
And tells her things he won't tell me.
I have to grieve, I’ll tell you why—
She has more gold and silver than I,
But gold will melt and silver fly,
In time of need she's poorer than I.
O Mother dear, you needn't know
The grief and sorrow, pain and woe;
Just give me a chair and sit me down,
With a pen and ink to write words down.
She went upstairs to make her bed,
And not a word to her mother said.
When her dear father he came home
Inquiring where his daughter had gone.
He went upstairs and the door he broke,
He found her hanging to a rope,
He took his knife and he cut her down,
And in her bosom these words he found:
A foolish girl I am, you know,
To hang myself for a butcher's boy;
Must I go bound while he goes free?
Must I love a boy that don't love me?
When I am dead, go bury me deep,
With a marble stone at my head and feet,
Upon my breast a snow-white dove
To show this world I died for love.