In Johnson City- Grace McCurry (NC) 1931 Scarborough F
[From Dorothy Scarborough; A Song Catcher in the Southern Mountains, 1938. Date established by Bronson as c.1931. Her notes follow,
R. Matteson 2017]
North Carolina, too, cherishes the song of the boy who perhaps had learned brutality from his callous task of sawing up meat.
Mrs. Grace McCurry insists that the tragedy took place in Johnson city and who shall prove that it did not?
(F) In Johnson City
In Johnson City where I did dwell,
A blue-eyed boy loved so well.
He courted me both night and day,
And then with me he would not slay.
He goes around in some strange town,
He goes right in and sits right down,
He takes a strange girl on his knee,
And he tells her what he once told me.
Oh, mother, oh, mother, pray tell me why,
Because she has more gold than I?
Her gold will melt and silver fly
And then she'll be as poor as I.