I learned this song from a friend playing it in Loudoun County, VA, about 10 years ago. I don't remember memorizing it right then, but it looks like I patched it together about from memory when I started playing it. I asked him, and he doesn't remember where he got it from.

Any variations from Forrester's in the fiddle part on the recording are because the fiddler learned it from me.

https://colincutlermusic.bandcamp.com/track/cruel-willie

For chords: I play it in C. The verse is pretty much all in C (though I'll sometimes throw in an A minor at the end of the second line). The chorus is C-Am-G.

One other thing--the shift from "bad" to "mad" in the chorus after she stabs him. I do remember him singing it this way, and I thought it was an important (and funny!) shift.

And funny story--I once played this at a jam in Statesville, NC, and got accused of throwing in a "feminist bluegrass" song. Given that we'd just done "Banks of the Ohio," one of those chuck-her-in-a-river songs, I figured that I'd give the ladies an equal chance at doing the killing.


Cruel Willie

There was a man up in the mountains
Who was courtin' all the women,
And they said that Willie Duncan was his name.
He loved drinking and a-dancing and a-sinning
And, oh, Cruel Willie, what a shame.

Now Katie Lou was a lady in the valley
Whose hair was often likened to the sun.
Her eyes were blue as the heavens up above,
She was just about as pretty as they come.

Well, Willie, ain't ya sad
For making all the women feel bad?
Oh, Willie, ain't ya shamed
For causin' all the women all the pain?

He went a-riding in his buggy one fine morning,
And along the way he saw Katie Lou.
He was so betaken by her special kind of beauty,
He was hardly heard to whisper howdy-do.

She said, "Sir, I don't believe ya know me,
But you knew my little sister very well.
And she was such a sweet and a special kind of woman,
Till you took her heart and broke it all to hell."

Well, Willie, ain't ya sad
For making all the women feel bad?
Oh, Willie, ain't ya shamed
For causin all the women all the pain?

He said, "Ma'am, I don't believe ya know me,
Cause I've never hurt a woman in my life."
And he reached out of the buggy just to kiss her on the lips,
And she stuck him in the belly with a knife.

Well, Willie, ain't ya sad
For making all the women so mad?
Oh, Willie, ain't ya shamed
For causin all the women all the pain?

Now there's a wind that blows ever gentle through the valley,
Where they laid Willie Duncan in the ground,
And up on his tomb stone, this is what it reads:
One too many women got him down.