Rocky Mountain Top- Burnett (KY) 1937 Kirkland B
[From Popular Ballads Recorded in Knoxville, TN in Southern Folklore Quarterly, vol. II, no. 2., pages 65-80. Music notes and texts from Edwin Capers Kirkland and Mary Neal Kirkland, 1938. Their notes follow. This is a Kentucky version learned by a resident of Knoxville.
The first four stanzas are "Rocky Mountain Top" the 5th stanza is from a different ballad, the 6th and 7th from The House Carpenter.
R. Matteson 2016]
B. "The Rocky Mountain Top" was recorded July, 1937, by Mr. Raymond Stanley, who learned it from his father-in-law, Mr. Frank Burnett, of Middlesboro, Kentucky. "James Harris," like "The Lass of Roch Royal," is often mixed with other ballads and songs. Such a mixture is found here. The last two stanzas belong unmistakably to "James Harris," but the first four to a story of a mountain boy and girl and their disappointed love. Campbell and Sharp at Carmen, North Carolina, collected only one stanza of "The Rocky Mountain Top,"[19] and that is practically the same as the second stanza here.
[music]
As I rode out so early one morn,
To hear little birds sing sweet.
Oh, I laid my head in a college door,
To hear the true lovers weep.
"Don't you remember the rocky mountain tops so high,
With your hand upon my brow?
You promised you'd marry me
And make rue a lawful bride."
"Yes, I remember the rocky mountain tops so high
With my hand upon your brow.
I promised to marry you,
And make you a lawful bride."
"Hush up, oh it's my fair little miss;
Don't tell no stories on me;
I'll buy you a plate of yellow plated gold
And hang it on a willow weeping tree."
"Would you forsaken your house carpenter,
Would you forsaken your land,
Would you forsaken your three little babes
And go with another man?"
"Oh it's I'll forsaken my house carpenter;
Oh it's I'll forsaken my land;
Ch it's I'll forsaken my three little babes
And go with another man."