Knoxville Girl- Sgt. Alex Kirkheart (wV-KY) 1916 Lomax REC
[AFC recording 1938004- 1698B recorded by Alan Lomax in 1938. From Kentucky Alan Lomax Recordings, 1937-1942.
Listen: https://archive.org/details/afc1938004_1698B
R. Matteson 2016]
The Knoxville Girl- sung by Sgt. Alexander Kirkheart, Recorded on March 29, 1938 at Fort Thomas, Kentucky, Campbell County; vocal with guitar- fast waltx tempo. Learned from his father back in mountains of West Virginia about 1916.
In a town of Knoxville
Not many miles from here;
I knew a little Knoxville girl
So loving, kind and dear.
I fell in love with a Knoxville girl
with dark and rolling eyes,
I told her that I'd marry her,
If me she'd never deny.
I went down to her sister's house
Bout nine o'clock one night,
I asked to take a walk with me
Out through the meadows bright.
We walked along, we talked along,
Till we came to Knoxville town,
Then I picked up hickory stick
And I knocked that fair girl down.
She fell upon her bended knee,
O Lord have mercy, she cried,
Oh Willie, my dear, don't murder me here,
For I'm not prepared to die.
But never-- a word did I hear,
I beat her more and more,
I beat her 'til the ground around
Was bloody with her gore.
I took her by her yellow hair,
And I drug her round and 'round,
I threw her in the still water deep,
Below that Knoxville town.
Just about six weeks later,
The Knoxville girl was found,
Floating down the still water deep,
Below that Knoxville town.
Her sister swore my life away,
She swore without a doubt,
She swore I was the very same guy,
That took her sister out.
And now they're going to hang me,
A death I hate to die,
They're going to hang me up so high,
Between the earth and sky.