Well, there is at least one more recording that should be available as a Folkways Custom CD - by Bruce Buckley on Ohio Valley Ballads, Folkways FA2025 (apparently transcribed from the Folkways recording, and printed in Charles Darling's New American Songster

Lula Viers

Come all you young people and stand real close around,
I'll tell to you a story about a pretty young girl.
Her name was Lula Viers in Auxier she did dwell,
A town in old Kentucky, a place you all know well.

Come all you young people and stand real close around,
I'll tell to you a story how Lula Viers was drowned.
She loved a young John Colliers, engaged to be his wife;
He ruined her reputation, and stole away her life.

Lula was persuaded to leave her dear old home,
Bound the morning train with John Colliers for to roam.
They went to Elkhorn city just sixteen miles away
And stayed there at a hotel until the break of day.

When the night began to fall, they walked out for a stroll
'Twas in the month of December, the winds were blowing cold.
They stood down by the river, the waters running cold;
Johnny Colliers said to Lula, "In the bottom you must go."

"Oh, Johnny, you can't mean it, oh, surely it can't be;
How can you be the murderer of a helpless girl like me'
She kept humblin' and beggin', before him she did kneel
But around her neck he tied a piece of railroad steel.

He threw her in the river 'til the bubbles rose around;
With the bustle of the sunball and a sad and mournful sound,
John Colliers hurried to the depot, he bound the train for home;
He thinking that the murder would never, never be known.

Someone sent out a report, his name was Edwin Din;
They printed it in the papers and around the world it went.
They took her out of the river and carried her off to town,
With railroad steel around her neck that weighed about sixty pounds.

Oh, when the mother got the news she was sittin' in her home;
She quickly rose from her chair and ran to the telephone
Saying, "I will call headquarters, and then I'll go and see
If that can be my daughter, but surely it can't be."

When the mother got there, described the clothes she wore
When she saw the body she fainted to the floor.
John Colliers was arrested, condemned without a bail,
Probably the electric chair will force him off to Hades.


Looks like it would scan quite well to the tune of Texas Rangers.