When Carnal First Came to Arkansas- (AR) pre1947
[No informant, date or place named. From: The Native American Influence in Folk Songs of North Arkansas by Theodore Garrison; The Arkansas Historical Quarterly, Vol. 6, No. 2 (Summer, 1947), pp. 165-179. His notes follow.
R. Matteson 2012]
Ballad singers have occasionally made deliberate paradox, paraphrasals of traditional songs in order to recount local happenings. The following song is such a paraphrasal of "The Gypsy Laddie:"
WHEN CARNAL FIRST CAME TO ARKANSAS
When Carnal first came to Arkansas,
He came from Missouri-O.
He sung so sweet and melodious
That he charmed the heart of a lady-O.
When the landlord came in at night,
Inquiring for his lady-O,
The answer was, "She is not here;
She's run away with Carnal."
Go saddle to me my little bay mare;
The black is not so speedy-O.
I'll ride all day, I'll ride all night,
Or I'll overtake my lady.
Won't you turn around? Won't you come back?
Won't you go with your husband-O?
I'll lock you up in a room so high,
Where Carnal can't come nigh you.
I won't turn around, nor I won't go back;
I won't go with my husband-O.
I wouldn't give a kiss from Carney's lips
For all your land and your money.
They rode east and they rode west;
They spent most all her money-O,
Likewise the gold pins off her breast,
The gold rings off of her finger.
I used to have a house and home
And seven little babes to enthrall me-O.
Now I've come to the want of bread,
And Carnal's gone and left me.
The occasion for this facetious adaptation has, of course, long been forgotten; but if one disregards the first misleading lines of "When Carnal First Came to Arkansas," he has little difficulty in identifying the rest of it with "The Gypsy Laddie." Most of it, in fact, he can duplicate from the texts in the celebrated Child collection.