Johnson City- Robert Wallace (AL) 1948 Arnold
[From: Folksongs of Alabama by Byron Arnold. — University : University of Alabama Press, 1950. An Alabama Songbook: Ballads, Folksongs, and Spirituals Collected by Byron Arnold ; edited by Robert W. Halli Jr,
R. Mattesopn 2017]
Johnson City- sung by Robert Wallace Tuscaloosa, Alabama on June 18, 1948.
1. Johnson City where I did dwell,
There lived a boy I loved so well
He courted me my life away,
And then with me he would not stay.
2 “There lived another girl in that same town,
She took my love and set him down,
He tells to her what he once told me
She has more silver and gold, you see.
3 “Her silver will melt, her gold will fly,
And she will be as poor as I,
And he will leave her all alone
To sit and weep by a sad hearth stone.
4 “Oh Mother dear, go make my bed,
Where I can lay my weary head,
And bring a chair and I'll sit down
With a pen and ink I'll write it down.”
5 Her father come home, the door he broke,
He found her hanging by a rope.
He took his knife and cut her down
And on her breast these words he found.
6 “Oh Mother dear, you cannot see,
What sorrow this has brought to me.
First I was to be this young man's wife, "
But on this rope I'll end my life.
7 “Go dig my grave both wide and deep,
And put the stones at my head and feet,
And on my breast a turtle dove
To show this world I died for love."