Export Girl- Mr & Mrs Sutterfield (AR) 1963 Wolf F
[From The John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection at Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas. Also recorded for Parler in Ozark Folksong online.
R. Matteson 2016]
THE EXPORT GIRL- Sung by: Mr. And Mrs. Berry Sutterfield. Recorded in Marshall, AR 8/1/63.
Click here to listen to the original recording
http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/sutterfieldexport1279.html
I used to live in an Export town;
I used to live and dwell.
I used to live in an Export town;
I owned a flour mill.
I used to court an Export girl
With a dark and rolling eye.
I asked her if she’d marry me,
And me she didn’t deny.
I called in at her sister’s house,
Just eight o’clock at night.
I asked her if she’d walk with me
And view the meadows gay.
I asked her if she’d walk with me
And appoint the wedding day.
We walked along, we talked along,
‘Til we came to level ground.
I picked me up a hedgewood stick,
And I knocked this fair maid down.
She fell upon her bended knees,
Crying, “Willy--oh, Willy--don’t murder me now;
I’m not prepared to die.”
But I minded not a word she said,
But I beat her more and more.
I beat her ‘til the earth all ‘round
Was in a bloody gore.
I picked her up by the long yellow hair,
And I slung her around and around.
I carried her down by the deep waterside,
And I plunged her in to drown.
I called in at my mother’s house,
Just twelve o’clock at night.
My mother being old and feeble,
She woke up in a fright.
Crying, “Willy--oh, Willy--what have you done,
That’s bloodied your hands and clothes?”
I made a quick reply:
“Been bleeding at the nose.”
I called for a handkerchief
To bind my aching head,
And also a candlestick
To light myself to bed.
I rolled and I tumbled the whole night through,
No rest for me to find,
The flames of hell around my bed,
No rest for me to see.
About three weeks or later,
This fair maid was found,
A-floating down by the deep waterside,
Which flows through Export town.
Her sister swore my life away;
She swore without a doubt.
She swore that I was the very lad
That led her sister out.
Oh, now I am compelled to hang
Between the earth and skies.
Oh, now I am compelled to hang--
This death I dread to die.