Knoxville Girl- Fred Painter (MO) 1941 Randolph I
[My title. From: Randolph, Ozark Folksongs; 4 vols. 1946-50; reprinted Columbia, 1980, II, 92. Randolph notes follow.
Randolph attributes his versions to the local murder of Lula Noel in 1892 which, according to a report in History of McDonald County, Missouri (1897), is "One of the most appalling crimes ever committed in McDonald county was the murder of Mary Lula Noel daughter of W. H. and S. E. Noel on the 10 day of December, 1892." Lula Noel and William Simmons (the convicted murderer) are not mentioned in Randolph's versions and neither are the locations Lanagan and Joplin.
The attribution of Noel Girl is accurate and in some versions he acquired corresponding testimony (Version B, for example). This however does not mean the text of the ballad was changed in any way or should be titled Noel Girl since she is not part of the text. I've renamed his versions by creating local titles.
R. Matteson 2016]
Knoxville Girl--sung by Mr. Fred Painter of Galena, MO Sept. 26, 1941.
Away down in Knoxville town I used to live and dwell,
And in that little Knoxville town I owned a flourmill.
I fell in love with a Knoxville girl with pink and rosy eyes.
I promised her I'd marry her if me she'd never deny.
We walked along and talked along till we come to a level ground,
And I picked up a heavy stick and I knocked this little girl down.
She fell upon her bending knees. "Oh, Willie, have mercy!" she cried.
"Oh, Willie, my dear, don't murder me here, for I'm not prepared to die."
I laughed at every word she said. I beat her more and more.
I beat her till the ground around to . . . a bloody . . .[1]
I took her by her lily-white hair. I drug her round and round.
I drug her to the still water deep that flows to Knoxville town.
A dreadful trick we played her. This Knoxville girl was found
A-floating down the still water deep that flows to Knoxville town.
Her sister swore my life away. She swore without a doubt.
She swore I was the very man that laid her sister out.
And now they're going to hang me, a dreadful death to die.
And now they're going to hang me between the earth and sky.
1. ground around and about was a bloody gore