Lyr Add: The Watery Grave

Subject: Lyr Add: The Watery Grave
From: GUEST,Fred Jordan
Date: 06 Apr 14 - 06:41 PM

As I walked out
One fine summer's morn
Down by the riverside
I overtook a pretty fair maid
Pacing gently towards the side
I took her by the lily white hand
Kissed both her cheeks and her chin
I took her by the riverside
And I gently pushed her in
Oh there she goes
Oh there she goes
She's flowing away with the tide
Instead of having a watery grave
She ought to have been my bride

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Watery Grave
From: Joe Offer
Date: 11 May 20 - 09:03 PM

Anybody got more lyrics for this?

Nigel sang this tonight in Raleigh.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Watery Grave
From: RTim
Date: 11 May 20 - 09:10 PM

The Oxford Girl ....These are the words I sing...but there is also a longer version.
I think this came from Phoebe Smith - Suffolk, via Shirley Collins


I fell in love with an Oxford girl
She had a dark & a roving eye
But I feel to ashamed to marry her
Her being so young a maid.

I went up to her fathers house
About twelve o'clock one night
Asking her she would take a walk
Through the fields & meadows bright

I took her by the lilywhite hand
And I kissed her cheek & chin
But I had no thoughts of murdering her
Nor in no evil way.

I catched a stick from out the hedge
And I gently knock her down
Till the blood from that poor innocent girl
Came a trinkling to the ground.

I catched a hold of her curly curly locks
And I dragged her through the fields
Until we came to a deep river side
Where I gently flung her in.

Look how she goes, look how she floats
She's a drowning in the tide
And instead of her having a watery grave
She should have been my bride.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Watery Grave
From: RTim
Date: 11 May 20 - 09:44 PM

To my surprise...I found a version I recorded at home years ago...This the longer version and differs from the version I have posted above...Tim Radford

https://soundcloud.com/tim-radford/the-oxford-girl

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Watery Grave
From: Steve Gardham
Date: 12 May 20 - 04:55 AM

Working on this one at the moment. Master Title The Distressed Maid, Roud 564, Laws P18. Warning; it's one of those part of a large family of songs that have been rewritten several times by the broadside writers. Its origins go back at least as far as c1670 in The Forsaken Damsel; or The Deluded Maid (Bodleian 4o Rawlinson Ms. 566 (24).

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: The Watery Grave
From: RTim
Date: 12 May 20 - 12:01 PM

Here is Phoebe Smith singing one of her versions....Tim Radford

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXXKTRFlIx4