Knoxville Girl- Trusty sisters (KY) 1937 Lomax REC
[AFC recording 1937001- 1395A by Alan Lomax. From Kentucky Alan Lomax Recordings, 1937-1942. Several versions from Tennessee name Boston as the city he used to live and dwell (see: Henry).
Listen: https://archive.org/details/afc1937001_1395A
R. Matteson 2016]
Knoxville Girl- sung by Katherine and Mary Magdalene Trusty of Paintsville, Johnson County on September 11, 1937
In the town of Boston
I used to live and dwell
And in that little Knoxville town
I owned a flour mill.
I fell in love with a Knoxville girl
With dark and rolling eyes,
She promised me she'd marry me,
If me she'd never deny.
I called at her sister's house,
At nine o'clock one night.
And little did that poor girl think
I talked her in a fight[1].
I asked her take a walk with me
Down to the meadows gay,
If we could have a social talk,
And name our wedding day.
We walked along, we talked along,
Till we came to the level ground;
There I picked up an edgewood stick
And knocked that fair girl down.
She fell upon her bending knees,
Oh Lord have mercy she cried,
"Oh Willie dear, don't murder me here,
I'm not prepared to die."
The very, very word she said,
I beat her more and more
Until the ground around
Was in a bloody gore.
Then I took her yellow hair
I drugged her round and round
I took her to the still water deep,
That flows through Knoxville town.
Just 'bout six weeks later
This Knoxville girl was found
A-floating down the still water deep,
That flows through 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 death I hate to die;
They're going to hang me up so high
Between the earth and sky.
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.
1. derived from "owed her any spite"