AMG lists 22 recordings of "Short Life of Trouble," by the Blue Sky Boys, Doc Watson, Grayson & Whitter, Ralph Stanley, John Hartford, J. E. Mainer, and several others. Some sources call it traditional, and some attribute it to Grayson & Whitter.

Here's the way it was performed by Emry Arthur:

SHORT LIFE OF TROUBLE

Short life of trouble, a few more days till we part,
Short life of trouble, poor girl, for a boy with a broken heart.

Some o' these days, little woman, and it won't be very long,
You'll hang your head in sorrow, little girl, for I will be long gone.

[Repeat first verse twice]

[From the collection "The Music of Kentucky: Early American Rural Classics 1927-1937, Vol. 2," Yazoo CD 2014, 1995.]