Note in Randolph on "William Cook." "Many elderly Ozarkers tell me that this number used to be sung in backwoods churches, and Mr. J. V. Hamlin (1935) says that he heard it in a Holy Roller meeting near Rogers, Arkansas, so recently as 1931. The fifth verse has several lines in common with the twelfth stanza of the "Wild Bill Jones" song reported by Richardson (American Mountain Songs, 1927, p. 37) from the southern Appalachians. The 'Death Is a Melancholy Call' printed by Belden (Ballads and Songs, 1940, pp. 464-465) has several similar lines , but it is not the same song."

William Cook

Hark, hark, my young friends, it's a melancholy call,
The hour of death flyin' swiftly along,
There is one of our number, a youth in early bloom,
Who was called away by death, an' was laid in the tomb.

Go ye down to the graveyard an' sit ye down an' mourn,
Go ye down to the graveyard an' read it on the tomb,
Go ye down to the graveyard an' read it with care,
An' remember it won't be long till we all must lay there.

It grieves me most sadly to think that I must die,
To think that I got to go to a long eternity,
To leave my dear father an' mother behind,
An' sisters an' brothers that to me have been so kind.

An' when I am dead an' carried to my grave,
It's four young men I will voluntarily have,
By the side of my coffin Ill have them to walk,
An' of my sinful days I'll have them to talk.

An' when they get there they will set my body down,
While all my mournin' friends stands a-weepin' around,
They'll open my coffin an' all look down on me,
My face'll be a lookin'-glass for all my friends to see.

Then four young men they will take a hold of me,
An' lay my body down to the cold clods of clay,
They'll shovel down the gravel which makes a solemn sound,
While all my mournin' friends stands a-weepin' around.

My parents they thought they had brought me up well,
An' oft-times they had told me for to shun the gates of hell,
Their counsel I have slighted, my own way I have took,
So remember the young man whose name was William Cook.

With music. Sung by Mrs. W. A. Patton, Jane, MO, Dec. 1, 1929.

Vance Randolph, "Ozark Folksongs," no. 608, vol. 4, pp. 40-41.