Can't You Remember When Your Heart Was Mine? Carolina Tar Heels (NC) 1928 REC
[From the 1928 recording by the Carolina Tar Heels, BVE47162-3 released on Victor 40219 in 1930. Vocal and banjo Doc Walsh.
This was the first old-time country recording of "The House Carpenter" although the first verse is taken from a different song. The Greers recorded it in 1929 but it was never issued. For the Greers music see Brown Collection. Tom Ashley's version was recorded in 1930 and several years later Bradley Kincaid recorded the ballad.
R. Matteson 2013, 2016]
[Listen: Can't You Remember- Carolina Tar Heels]
Can't You Remember When Your Heart Was Mine?- sung by the Carolina Tar Heels. Recorded 11th October, 1928. Re-issued on JSP box set Mountain Frolic, Rare Old Timey Classics, 1924 - 1937, JSP77100.
Can't you remember when your heart was mine,
Your arms all around my breast.
But the thoughts that you told would have made me believe,
That the sun rose away in the west.
I once could have married the king's daughter fair
And she would have married me.
But now she's married a fine young man
And I hope he is happy as can be
Now will you leave this fine young man
And go along with me
I'll take you where the grass grows green
On the banks of the deep blue sea
They had not been on board but about two weeks,
And I'm sure it was not three.
There she began to weep and to mourn,
And she weeped most bitterly.
Are you weeping for my silver and my gold,
Are you weeping for my stores?
Are you weeping for my sweet little babe,
The face I will never see no more?
I'm neither weeping for your gold,
Nor weeping for your stores.
I'm weeping for my nice young man,
My face I will never see no more.
They had not been on board but about three weeks,
And I'm sure it was not four;
Till there sprang a leak in the bottom of the ship,
And it sunk for to rise no more.
A curse, a curse to all seamen,
A curse to the sailor boy.
For he deprived me of my nice young man,
The face I will never see no more.