Jersey City- Mary N. Presley (VA) 1931 Scarborough D
[From Dorothy Scarborough; A Song Catcher in the Southern Mountains, 1938. Date established by Bronson as c.1931. Her notes follow,
R. Matteson 2017]
Mrs. Mary N. Presley, of Council, Virginia, has in her version stanzas from other love plaints, as the one about the apron, which is from "Careless Love," and the one expressing the wish that the babe was a-born and the mother dead, which appears in other songs of unhappy love. She says that she's known this since her childhood in Russell County. She hold that the scene is laid in Jersey City rather than London or New York Well the betrayal and suicide have doubtless occurred in all three metropolises, as elsewhere.
(D) Jersey City
In Jersey City where my love dwelled,
A butcher boy I loved so well.
He courted me both night and day
Till he courted my poor heart away.
When I wore my apron low,
He followed me through frost and snow.
But now my apron's tied close to my chin,
He rides the road and won't look in.
He rides off down the road to town,
Takes off his hat and there sets down,
Takes some other girl upon his knee
And tells to her what he won't tell me.
I wish to God my babe was a-born
Sitting smiling on its papa's knee,
And I poor girl was dead and gone,
And the green grass growing over me.
Go on, young man, to your father's door,
And there set down and cry your fill,
And think of the way you treated me,
Just take it to your own heart's will.
Go dig my grave both wide and deep,
Place a marble stone at my head and feet,
And on my breast a purple dove
To show this world I died for love.