Blue Eyed Boy- Hezekiah Crane (TN) 1916 Sharp MS
[From: Cecil Sharp Manuscript Collection (at Clare College, Cambridge) (CJS2/9/2474). Yates notes follow.
R. Matteson 2017]
On Sunday, 3rd September, Sharp had a lie-in, not having breakfast until 'half-an-hour later', at 7am! He spent the morning copying out song tunes before walking over to the Crane household. Sharp spells the surname as 'Crane', although most families in the area use the spelling 'Crain'. It would seem that Sharp had been told that Hezekiah sang a song which, so Sharp believed, was a version of the ballad The Wife Wrapt in Wether's Skin. Hezekiah was in when they called, but the song turned out to be 'a very moderate version of My Boy Billy!' But all was not lost, as Hezekiah also gave Sharp versions of three other songs, William Hall, The Brisk Young Lover and Awake, Awake. [from Yates article: Jeff Stockton and the Flag Pond singers]
The Blue Eyed Boy [Brisk Young Lover] sung by Hezekiah Crane of Flag Pond, Tennessee on September 3, 1916. Collected by Cecil Sharp.
In North Carolina I once did dwell
With a blue-eyed boy I loved so well,
He courted me my life away
And then with me he would not stay.
He took me to some farmer's house,
And sit me down upon a chair,
And took a strange girl on his knee,
He told her that he wouldn't tell me.
I know, I know, the reason why,
She has more gold and silver than I;
Her gold will rust, her silver will fly,
And then she will be as poor as I.
I'll go upstairs and I'll sit down,
Take a pen and ink and write it down,
I'll lay my head upon the bed,
And think of what dear mother said:
Go dig a grave both wide and deep,
Place a marble stone at my head and feet,
and on my heart place a snow-white dove,
To show the world I died for love.