Export Girl- Jewel Hawkins (AR) 1962 Wolf D
[From: The John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection at Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas . Missing a few ending stanzas.
R. Matteson 2016]
D. "THE EXPORT GIRL." Sung by: Jewel Hawkins. Recorded in Batesville, AR 9/30/62
Click here to listen to the original recording
http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/hawkinsexport1263.html
I fell in love with an Export girl;
Dark rolling were her eyes.
I fell in love with another poor girl,
And loved her just as nice.
I called for her to take a walk
Out o'er the meadow so green.
Perhaps we'd find some secret talk
Appointing our wedding day.
We walked together, we talked together,
'Til we came to level ground,
And it's there I picked up a stick of hedge,
And knocked this poor girl down.
She fell all on her bending knee.
"For mercy's sake," she cried.
"Sweet William, dear, don't murder me here,
For I'm unprepared to die."
But little attention did he pay,
But he beat her more and more,
'Til the ground all around of where they stood
Was in a bloody gore.
He picked her up by her long yellow hair,
And swung her 'round and 'round,
And takened her to the riverside,
And throwed her in to drown.
"Lie there, lie there, you Export girl;
To me you'll never be tied.
Lie there, lie there, you Export girl;
You'll never be my bride."
I called at home, my mother's home,
About eleven o'clock.
Her mother asked me what . . .
"Oh son, oh son, what have you done
To bloody your hands and coat?"
The answer that my mother got
Was "Bleeding at the nose."
[I called for a candle[1]
to light myself to bed,
and also for a handkerchief
to bind my aching head.]
They called for an Export sheriff
To put me in the jail.
Had no one to love me,
And no one to go my bail.
(Dr. Wolf: "Now, you said something about a candle. 'I called for a candle.' Did you put that on there?"
Mr. Hawkins: "'I called for a candle to light myself to bed, and also for a handkerchief to bind my aching head.'"
Dr. Wolf: "Yep."
Mr. Hawkins: "Ah, I didn't get enough of that.")
1. left off