Fly Around- James York (NC) c. 1939 Brown B
[From Brown Collection of NC Folklore, Volume 3, 1952. The last verse from another song called "Bonnie Blue Eyes"
R. Matteson 2018]
286 Fly Around, My Blue-Eyed Girl
Here are assembled a number of songs of rather widely different character but held together by a common phrase (sometimes with "blue-eyed miss" or "pretty little miss" instead of "blue-eyed girl") in the chorus stanza. They are not always easily to be kept apart from songs with the "pretty little pink" phrase. Where these latter are definitely play-party or dance songs they are considered under the caption 'Coffee Grows on White Oak Trees.' The songs brought together here are not described by the contributors as play-party songs — though some of them may have been so used. A song using the phrase reported by Sharp from North Carolina, "Betty Anne' (SharpK ii), is not considered by him a play-party song. There is in our collection a record of the song as sung by Miss Hattie McNeill of Ferguson, Wilkes county, in 1922.
B. [Fly Around my Blue Eyed Girl] No title. Collected from James York, Olin, Iredell county, in August 1939. The final stanza is from 'Bonnie Blue Eyes' ; stanza 3 seems to belong to some convict's song. The first stanza may be assumed to be
a chorus.
[Chorus] Fly around, my blue eyed girl,
Fly around, my daisy;
Fly around, my blue eyed girl,
You almost run me crazy.
Hard to love when you can't be loved,
It's hard to change your mind.
You've broke my heart, you've killed me dead,
You left me far behind.
They bound my hands with iron bands,
They bound my feet with chains;
And before I leave my sweet daisy
I'd wear the old shackles again.
Don't cry, my bonnie blue eyes,
Don't cry, my bonnie, don't cry
For if you cry you'll spoil you eyes;
Don't cry, my bonnie blue eyes.