Export Girl- Lowell Harness (AR) 1963 Wolf G
[From The John Quincy Wolf Folklore Collection at Lyon College, Batesville, Arkansas.
R. Matteson 2016]
G. "EXPORT TOWN." Sung by: Lowell Harness. Recorded in Pangburn, AR 7/29/63
Click here to listen to the original recording
http://web.lyon.edu/wolfcollection/songs/harnessexport1276.html
I used to live in an Export town,
I used to live and dwell.
I used to live in an Export town
And owned a flour mill.
There was a girl, an Export girl,
Had dark and rolling eyes.
I asked that girl to marry me,
To me she wouldn’t deny.
I called at her sister’s house,
‘Bout nine o’clock one night.
Her sister, knowing not who I be,
She owed me such a spite.
I says, “My love, let’s take a walk
And view the meadows gay,
And pray that we will have a chat
And name our wedding day.”
We walked along, we talked along,
‘Til we came to level ground.
I picked a stick up off the ground,
And knocked that fair girl down.
She fell upon her bended knees.
“Oh, Lord, have mercy,” she cried.
“Willy, dear, don’t murder me here,
I’m not prepared to die.”
I heeded not a word she said,
But beat her more and more,
Until the ground all around us both
Was in a bloody gore.
I called at my mother’s house
‘Bout twelve o’clock that night.
My mother, not knowing who I be,
She waked up in a fright.
“Darling son, what have you done,
To bloody your hands and clothes?”
The answer I gave to her
Was bleeding at the nose.
(Mr. Harness: “That’s all I know if it now. That’s as far as I know. I’ve tried to figure it out from there on, but I can’t.”)