Noel Girl- Eva Shockley (MO) 1928 Randolph B
[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]
B. "Noel Girl." Mrs. Eva Shockley, Noel, Mo., Aug. 12, 1928, sings a very similar version of this song [see version A] except for the first stanza. Mrs. Shockley insists that this piece is called "The Noel Girl," and has never doubted that it referred to the murder of Lula Noel. When asked what "the city of Lexton Town" had to do with this murder she said that perhaps Lexton was an old name for the village now called Pineville, and cited several cases in which the names of nearby settlements had been changed within her own memory.
My tender parents brought me up,
Provided for me well,
'Twas in the city of Lexton Town
They placed me in a mill.
One day I saw a pretty fair maid[1],
On her I cast an eye,
I told' her I would marry her
And she believed a lie.
I went unto her sister's house
AI eight o'clock that night,
I ask her if she'd walk with me
A little ways away
So arm in arm we walked along
Till we came to a lonely place,
There I took a rail from off the fence
An' struck her in the face.
She fell down on her bended knees,
An' loud for mercy cried,
For heaven's sake don't murder me
For I'm not prepared to die.
I paid no attention to what she said,
But kept on strikin' her more,
Until I saw the innocent looks
That I never could restore.
I run my fingers through her coal black hair
To cover up sin,
I drug her to the river side
An' there I plunged her in.
When I returned unto my mill
I met my servant John,
He ask me why I looked so pale
An' yet so very warm.
An' what occasion so much blood
Upon my hands an' clothes?
The sad an' only answer was
A bleedin' from the nose.
I lit a candle an' went to bed
Expectin' to take some rest,
But it seemed to me the fires of hell
Was a-burnin' in my breast.
Come all young men an' warnin' take,
That to your lovers prove true,
An' never let the devil get
The upper hand of you.
1. After the first stanza the text is taken from Version A.