Alabama City- Mrs. Carter (AL) 1968 Dill
[From: Bulletin - Volumes 34-37 - Page 84
Tennessee Folklore Society - 1968
R. Matteson 2017]
"Alabama City" sung by Mrs. Carter, 77 years old, from New Market, Alabama; from a tape recording by Mrs. Alice Dill, 1968.
1. In Alabama City where I did dwell,
A cotton-mill boy I loved so well.
He courted me, my heart away,
And then with me he would not stay.
2. He'd take other girls upon his knee
And tell them things that he wouldn't tell me.
3. And Pa come home and says to Ma,
"Where's that daughter Mary gone?"
"She's gone upstairs" --the door he broke,
And found her hanging to a rope.
4. He took his knife and cut her down
And in her bosom those words were found:
"What a silly girl am I
To hang myself for a cotton-mill boy."
5. "Must I go bound and him go free?
Must I love boys that don't love me?
O no, no, no, that never can be,
'Til oranges grows on an apple tree."