Richie,

I couldn't agree more. The last 2 lines of the third stanza are rather clumsy. In his truncated version for Folkways [FS 381], Kazee omitted his original second stanza and changed stanza 3, to become stanza 2:

Her papa said that we must marry
Her mother said it would not do
So come here, dear, and I will tell you
I will take you far from here

He then continues with the 2-line stanza and concludes with the 'dark holler' stanza. This is better, but I prefer your suggestion. These songs are not meant to be set in concrete. Tim Eriksen [of Cordelia's Dad] puts it beautifully in his essay in the booklet accompanying the first volume of the Warner Collection on CD. He is talking about field recordings, but the early old-time commercial recordings, particularly of the 1920s, were just as important in terms of preserving 'the tradition':

If we wear the feathers of an eagle will we acquire her speed? If we collect field recordings will we attain 'tradition'? The idea that such things are possible is esoteric magic, and is as old as Adam. The value in this music, however real it may be, can't exist outside of perception and experience. It simply can't be preserved or materialised - though the recordings contain its echo, calling it to mind. It seems to me the only reliable way to keep something alive is to live it, thinking less about what we have and what we know and more about what we do with it. I doubt we can keep the past alive any more than it already is, and what we call 'tradition' is probably our most durable storage format. Everything we live will become something, and everything we set in stone will remain there until it becomes nothing, or someone makes something of it. In ten million years the English language is likely to have turned into something, though unfamiliar, but all the books we know, along with this CD, are likely to have gone to nothing (though not without making their contribution). The cool thing is that this music is present, it's perceivable, and it's ready to live if we give it a home. We can even sing these songs and, with diligence, sing them well. [Tim Eriksen, p30 of his essay in booklet insert to Various Artists 'Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still: The Warner Collection Vol I' Appleseed APR CD-1035]

The recording of Wilmer Watts' 'Sleepy Desert' was cleaned up better than I recalled. I think I got most of it - uncertain bits in brackets. Corrections anyone?

SLEEPY DESERT

Wake, oh wake, you sleepy desert
Wake, oh wake, it's a-comin' day
Oh stick your head out of the window
See what your true lover say

Some people says that courting's pleasure
Oh what pleasure do I see
When the dearest girl in this world
Has done and turned her back on me

Wake, oh wake, you sleepy desert
Wake, oh wake, it's a-comin' day
Oh stick your head out of the window
See what your true lover say

There's no one (to follow to) bedroom
There's no one to sleep with me
I got a wife way up in heaven
And the Lord knows she loves me

Wake, oh wake, you sleepy desert
Wake, oh wake, it's a-comin' day
Oh stick your head out of the window
See what your true lover say

You (needn't to bother) to ask my papa
He's in his room a-takin' his rest
And in his hand he holds a weapon
To kill the man that I love best

Source: transcription of Wilmer Watts and His Lonely Eagles 'Sleepy Desert' recorded 29 or 30 October 1929 in New York City and issued as Paramount 3282. Reissued on Various Artists 'Times Ain't Like They Used To Be: Early American Rural Music Vol III' Yazoo CD 2047.

Watts was from North Carolina and worked in the cotton mills. Band member, Palmer Rhyne, duetted on vocals on 'Sleepy Desert' and the pair were accompanied by an unidentified, but tasty, steel guitarist.

--Stewie.