Butcher Boy- Dimple Savage Thompson (KY) 1975
[From: Monroe County Folklife - page 16; 1975. Monroe County, Kentucky was first settled in 1790. This version was sung by Dimple Savage Thompson. Dimple Elese Savage married Jaspar Thompson in 1938 born circa 1918.
R. Matteson 2017]
Butcher Boy -sung by Dimple Savage Thompson of Monroe County, Kentucky; published in 1975.
In London where I did dwell
Lived a butcher boy I loved so well
He courted me my heart away
And then with me he would not stay,
There is a girl in that same town,
where my love goes and sits right down,
He takes a strange girl on his knee,
And tells her things he won't tell me.
"Tis grief! Oh grief I'll tell you why
Because she has more gold than I
Her gold will melt and silver fly
She'll see the day she's poor as I.
I went upstairs to make my bed
And nothing to my mother said
She followed me right up for fear,
Saying What is wrong my daughter dear.
Oh mother mother you do not know
What pain and sorrow I have known
Go get a chair and sit me down
With pen and ink to write it down.
With every line she shed a tear
For calling back her Willie dear
Her father came home and looked around
Says, Where can my daughter be found.
He went upstairs and, the door he broke
He found her hanging by a rope
He took his knife and cut her down
And in her hands these words he found.
Go dig my grave both wide and deep
Place a marble stone at my head and feet
On my breast put a snow white dove
To show this world I died for love.