Butcher Boy- Bill Ping (CA) 1972 Hunter B
[From Max Hunter Collection; Cat. #1473 (MFH #37)
Listen: https://maxhunter.missouristate.edu/songinformation.aspx?ID=0797
This is a rare US version with a stanza from the c. 1686 white-letter broadside titled "The Constant Lady and False-hearted Squire." Published by Broadwood as:
There is a flower, I've heard them say,
Would ease my heart both night and day;
I would, to God, that flower I could find,
That could ease my heart and my troubling mind!
R. Matteson 2017]
Butcher Boy- As sung by Bill Ping, Santa Rosa, California on September 20, 1972.
VERSE 1
There is a flower I heard say,
It's called heart ease, both night an' day
And if that flower I could find
Would ease my heart an' please my mind.
VERSE 2
In Jersey City where I did dwell
Lived a butcher boy that I loved quite well
He courted me, my heart away
And then with me, he would not stay
VERSE 3
There is a tavern in this town
Where he goes in an' sits him down
He'll take a strange girl on his knee
An' tell to her, what he once told me.
VERSE 4
O grief, O grief, I'll tell you why
Because she has more gold than I
The gold will melt, the silver'll fly
In time of need she's as poor as I
VERSE 5
She went upstairs to make her bed
Not one word to her Mother said
Her Mother said, your acting queer
What's troubling you, my daughter dear?
VERSE 6
O, Mother dear, you need to know
My fate an' sorrow, grief an' woe
But give me a chair an' set me down
With pen and ink to write more down.
VERSE 7
An' when her Father, first came home
Where is my daughter, where's she gone
He went upstairs an' the door he broke
An' he found her hanging by a rope
VERSE 8
He took his knife an' he cut her down
An' in her bosom, these lines he found
O, what a foolish girl am I
To hang myself for a butcher boy
VERSE 9
Go dig my grave, both wide an' deep
Place a marble slab, at my head an' feet
An' o'er my gave place a turtle dove
To show this world that I died for love