Come My Love Come (Nancy Till)

Down in d' canebrake
Close by the mill
There lives a colored girl
Her name is Nancy Gill.
I told her I loved her
I loved her very long
I'm gonna serenade her
And this'll be my song:

Chorus:
Come my love come
My boat lies low
She lies high and dry
On the O-hi-o,
Come my love come
Won't you come along with me?
And I'll take you down to Tennessee

Down in d' canebrake
Some happy day
You'll hear the wedding bells
A ringin' might gay
There's gonna be a cabin
And in a trundle bed
There'll be a pickaninny
And all because I said:
Chorus:

Down in d' canebrake
That's where I'll stay
'Long side my Nancy Gill
Till we are laid away
And when I get to heaven
And Peter lets us in
I'll start my wings a flappin'
And sing to her again:
Chorus:
^^

Collected from the songs of Charles Edward Prewett, British Columbia Light Horse, minstrel shows, Vernon B.C,. Canada (ca. 1915). A version with similar first verse and chorus is in the Levy Sheet Music Collection under the title Nancy Till.

Anne and Frank Warner, collected a fragment of this song from Eleazar Tillett of Wanchese, NC (Outer Banks) in 1951 and it was recorded by Jeff Warner and Jeff Davis as Come Love Come on the album Wilder Joy (Flying Fish 1986), a compilation of two songs Nancy Till and Dan Emmett's (Mt. Vernon, OH) "Boatsman Dance" of the 1840s

. Frank Brown of Duke Univ. also collected a version of this song in 1926 from Charles Tillett, Eleazar Tillett's husband. [Brown, Frank C. Folk Songs from North Carolina. Durham: Duke University Press, 1952. (Vol. III of the Seven vol. Frank C. Brown Collection of North Carolina Folklore, p. 491