Knoxville Girl- Elizabeth Minyard (KY) 1937 Lomax REC
[AFC recording 1937001- 1391B2 by Alan Lomax. From Kentucky Alan Lomax Recordings, 1937-1942.
Listen: https://archive.org/details/afc1937001_1391B2
R. Matteson 2016]
Knoxville Girl- Elizabeth Minyard of Pine Mountain, KY; Harlan County on September 7, 1937.
I met a girl in Knoxville
The town we live and dwell
Was [in] a little Knoxville town
We owned a flour mill.
I fell in love with a Knoxville girl
With dark and rolling eyes[1],
I asked that girl to walk with me,
Bout nine o'clock one night.
We walked along, we talked along
Till we came to the level ground
I picked me up my edgewood[2] stick
And knocked that fair one down.
She fell upon her bended knees,
Oh Lawd have mercy did cry,
"Oh Willie dear, don't kill me here,
I'm not prepared to die."
She never spoke another word,
I beat her more and more
Until the ground around her
Was in a bloody gore[3].
Then I took her by the golden curls
I drugged her round and round
And I threw her in the still water deep,
That flows through Knoxville town.
Go there, go there, you Knoxville girl,
Go there, go there," I cried;
Go there, go there, you Knoxville girl,
You never will be my bride."
I started back to Knoxville
I got there 'bout midnight,
My mother she were worried,
Woke up all in a fright[4].
My son, my son what have you done
Got blood all on your clothes?
The answer I gave mother,
Was bleeding at my nose.
I called for me a candle,
To light myself to bed[5].
1. "eyes" barely sung or missed
2. from "hedge wood"
3. sings "blood adore"
4. sings "in a cryin'"
5. ends abruptly