In Jersey City- anon (NY) pre1940 Thompson A
[From: Body, Boots, & Britches: Folktales, Ballads, and Speech from Country New York by Harold William Thompson, pp. 387-388, 1940. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
At the present time, the most widely known song of this sort in the state is The Butcher's Boy or In Jersey City a typical version sung at the State College in Albany is this:
In Jersey City where I did dwell,
There lived a boy I loved so well.
He took my heart away from me,
And now he will not look at me.
He takes strange girls upon his knee
And tells them tales he won't tell me;
And now I know the reason why:
Because they have more gold than I.
Their-gold will melt, their silver fly,
And then they,ll be as poor as I.
I went upstairs unto my -bed
Without a word to mother said.
I took a chair and sat me down,
With pen and ink I wrote it down,
And on each line I shed a tear,
Calling back my Willie dear.
When father came from work that night
And looking for his daughter bright,
He climbed the stairs and the door he broke,
And found her hanging from a rope.
"O grief, O grief! What have you done?
Gave up your life for a butcher's son."
He took a knife and he cut her down,
And on her breast these words he found:
"O dig my grave and dig it deep,
A marble slab from head to feet
And on my breast a turtle-dove
To tell the world I died for love.
"I wish, I wish, I wish in vain,
I wish I were sixteen again.
Sixteen again I'll never be
Till apples grow on a cherry tree."