Knoxville Girl- Washam/Crymes (AR) 1954 Parler D
[Ozark Folk Song Collection- online; Reel 191 Item 5. Collected by Mary Jo Davis For M. C. Parler. Transcribed by Frances Majors
Listen:
http://digitalcollections.uark.edu/cdm/singleitem/collection/OzarkFolkSong/id/3101/rec/7
R. Matteson 2106]
The Knoxville Girl - Sung by Marie Washam and J. R. Crymes of DeValls Bluff, Arkansas on June 13, 1954.
In a little Knoxville town
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 her I'd never deny.
I called her at her sister's house
at six o'clock one day,
I asked her take a walk with me,
and name our wedding day.
We walked along, we talked along,
'til we came to level ground,
Then I picked up hedgewood stick
and I knocked that fair girl down.
She fell upon her bending knees,
O Lord have mercy, she cried,
Oh Willie, my dear, don't murder me here,
For I'm not prepared to die.
Never, never a word I said,
I beat her more and more,
I beat her 'til the ground around
Stood in a bloody gore.
I took her by her yellow hair,
And I swung her round and 'round,
I threw her in the still water deep,
That flows through Knoxville town.
Along about six, they found her,
The Knoxville girl was found,
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 lad,
That laid her sister out.
So 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.