The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #71244 Message #1217769
Posted By: Joe Offer
01-Jul-04 - 02:12 PM
Thread Name: Lyr Add: Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still
Subject: ADD Version: Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still
Sandy has an exact transcription from Anne Warner's book, Traditional American Songs from the Anne & Frank Warner Collection, which is supposed to be a transcription of the 1951 recording of Eleazar Tillett and Martha Etheridge - but it's not printed in the verse order I hear on the recording. Here's what's on the recording:
Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still
Collected from Eleazar Tillett and Martha Etheridge, 1951 by Frank and Anne Warner
It's been a year since last we met,
We may never meet again.
I have struggled to forget
But the struggle was in vain.
For her voice lives on the breeze,
And her spirit comes at will,
In the midnight on the seas,
Her bright smile haunts me still.
In the midnight on the seas
Her bright smile haunts me still.
I have sailed 'neath alien skies,
And I've trod the desert path,
I have seen the storm arise
Like a giant in his wrath.
Every danger I have known
That a reckless life can fill,
No, her presence is not flown,
Her bright smile haunts me still.
No, her presence is not flown,
Her bright smile haunts me still.
At the first sweet dawn of light,
When I gaze upon the deep,
Her form still greets my sight
While the stars their vigil keep.
When I close my aching eyes,
Sweet dreams my memory fill,
And from sleep when I arise
Her bright smile haunts me still.
And from sleep when I arise
Her bright smile haunts me still.
Transcribed from Her Bright Smile Haunts Me Still: the Warner Collection, Volume 1 (Appleseed Recordings, 2000). Recorded in 1951 from the singing of Eleazar Tillett and (sister) Martha Etheridge, Wanchese, NC.
I could swear that at the end of each verse, they sing, "Her bright smile daunts me still," the first time, and "haunts" the second.