One Saturday Night- Colon Keel (FL) 1939 Lomax
[From: AFC 1939/001: AFS 02708b01 Audio Recording from Southern Mosaic: The John and Ruby Lomax 1939 Southern States Recording Trip -1939.
Listen: https://cdn.loc.gov/master/afc/afc1939001/afc1939001_02708b1.wav
This is an excellent full version.
R. Matteson 2016]
One Saturday Night- sung by Colon Keel with guitar; Raiford, Florida, June 3, 1939, recorded by John Avery Lomax, Ruby T. Lomax.
It was one Saturday night,
Curs-ed be the day.
The devil put it in my head,
To take her life away.
I went down to her sister's house
It was eight o'clock one night,
Little did the poor girl think,
That I would have a spite.
I asked her is she would take a walk,
For just a little way,
That we may walk and have a talk,
About our wedding day.
We walked and talked both side by side,
Till we met a silent place,
I took a stick from off of the fence,
and struck her in the face.
She fell upon her bending knees,
And offered this reply;
"Please for my sake, don't murder me
For I'm not prepared to die."
I wound my hands in [her] coal-black hair,
To cover up my sin;
I drug her down to the riverside,
And there I plunged her in.
And on my way, returning home,
I met my servant John;
"How come you are so awfully pale,
And yet you are so warm[1]?"
"How come blood [is] all on your hands,
And all-- on your clothes?"
And this[2] was my reply
"From bleeding at the nose."
Lighting my candle and going bed
Just thinking to take a rest,
it seems to me that the flames of hell,
Were burning in my breast.
Come all of you fellows from far and near,
Just let your true friends know,
Never let the devil get
The upper hold of you.
1. originally derived from "wan" for pale.
2. unclear