The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #18902 Message #2921513
Posted By: Q (Frank Staplin)
05-Jun-10 - 08:48 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Req: My Pretty Quadroon
Subject: Lyr. Add: PRETTY QUADROON
My Pretty Quadroon was printed in Beadle's Song Book, #16, July 1865, previously mentioned, and in Half Dime Singers Library, Feb. 1879.
The following was collected from a "degraded recording" (no date or artist listing), MacEdward Leach; "MacEdward Leach and the Songs of Atlantic Canada," 2004, Memorial University.
Pretty Quadroon
I will never forget when I met
Sweet Cora, my pretty quadroon,
I can still see her eyes shining yet,
As she vowed she'd be true 'neath the moon.
Her form was so radiant and fair,
She had cheeks like the wild rose in June;
And in ringlets her dark glossy hair
Was fine pearls on my pretty quadroon.
Chorus:
Oh, my pretty quadroon,
My flower that faded too soon;
My heart like the strings on my banjo,
All broke for my pretty quadroon
Oh, who were so happy as we?
We lived like a flower in June;
And the light of her dark rolling eyes
Shined on an old slave like me.
But happiness will fade like a rose,
And before the next full of the moon,
The drummer will knock at my door,
And steal Cora, my pretty quadroon.
Farewell to Kentucky's green fields,
Farewell to the green of the shore;
Farewell to the green clover fields,
Where Cora and I often strayed.
I can feel those cold northern breezes,
For they sound on the hill like a drum;
Oh, soon there would be a bad day,
A day of the loneliness to come.
One plunge in a dark muddy stream,
One struggle and all will be o'er;
My life floats away like a dream,
The voice of a drummer no more.
My sorrow will soon be forgot,
And my soul will find rest in the tomb;
My spirit will fly to the spot
And keep guard on my pretty quadroon.
Some different elements to this version.