Lyrics found at The Hank Snow Country Music Centre:


BLACK DIAMOND
Written by Stuart Hamblen
Recorded by Hank Snow

SUNG: Greater love hath no man than this,
That he lay down his life for a friend.

NARRATE: These eyes of mine have seen some things
I'm sure you wouldn't find in a book.
There just isn't words to describe them all
And at times I'm sorry I looked;
But when the day comes around and age throws me down
And pens me in an old rocking chair,
I'll just close my eyes and hunt up an old friend:
Black Diamond with his wooly black hair.

We lost a fight on an island of hell
That lies in a tropical sea,
And the blast of a shell had knocked me to sleep
And I laid with the dead for a week.
When I opened my eyes a heathen had me.
He carried me away to his lair,
And in the days to come I gave him that name:
Black Diamond with his wooly black hair.

Hidden away in a cave in the hills,
He held a cup to my lips,
But I couldn't drink to gather new strength
And the pain and a shattered hip,
But I soon got used to that hideous face
That would have given death a scare,
An angel of mercy with a bone through his nose:
Black Diamond with his wooly black hair.

He'd gone away to fetch my food
And the enemy got wise to the game,
And from the crest of the hill I saw him knocked down.
He never would mention my name.
They beat him and tortured him and slashed him up
And left him hanging there.
I cried as I crawled but death beat me to him,
Black Diamond with his wooly black hair.

Though these eyes of mine see a million men
With money or power or fame,
I'll never meet one who would crowd him awhile
Or go to the top of his name.
These eyes aren't forgetting the way that he died.
I live cause he paid my fare,
For he never would say where he hid me that day,
Black Diamond with his wooly black hair.

SUNG: Greater love hath no man than this,
That he lay down his life for a friend.


[Recorded by Hank Snow on "Memories Are Made of This" (1970). It is also on the Bear Family collections "The Singing Ranger, Vol. 3" (1994) and "The Singing Ranger, Vol. 4" (1995).]