Bluegrass Messengers

Dearest Billie- Agnes Presley (NC) 1917 Wetmore

[From: Mountain Songs of North Carolina by Suzanne Wetmore and Marshall Bartholomew, 1927. This is a composite of three Died for Love stanza. The first is from a modified 7A Sailor Boy or perhaps modified 7J. I Know my Love by his Way of Walking. Because of the "coal-black hair," it seems more like "the colour of amber" stanza modified.  The second is found in many Died for Love songs (Rambling Boy; Butcher Boy), also modified, and the third is a common added stanza from the Constant Lady broadside, c. 1686 (See Love has Brought Me to Despair; UK Died for Love).

R. Matteson 2017]

Dearest Billie- sung by Miss Agnes Presley of Arden, NC in June 1917 who learned it from her mother. The song came from her mother's great-grandmother Polly Wynne who came from Ireland and settled in North Carolina before the Revolutionary War.

Yonder come my dearest Billie,
I know him by his suit of blue,
I know him by his coal-black hair,
And by his good behavior too.

I love him better than father, mother,
I love him better than sister brother,
I love him better than all my kin,
If you turn him out, I'll let him in.
 
All thro' the meadow that lady run,
Picking flowers as they sprung;
Some she picked and some she pulled,
Until she had her apron full.