"Girl on the Greenbrier Shore" is another traditional ballad arranged by the Carter Family. The Greenbrier River flows through the Cumberland area in Virginia, kentucky and West Virginia.

It is sometimes called 'The Greenbrier Shore,' 'The Red River Shore,' 'New River Shore.' Note that "The Red River Shore" is an American cowboy variant of this ballad. I'm not sure which version is the oldest but the ballad is probably from an English source.

Dylan did the song 'The Greenbrier Shore' then changed it to 'The Red River Shore.' Greenbriar Boys [Greenbriar Boys, Vanguard VRS-9104, LP (1962), trk# A.05] named their group after this song.

The earliest reference I found was "Greenbrier Shore" in the 1910 "A Syllabus of Kentucky Folk-songs" By Hubert Gibson Shearin, Josiah Henry Combs.

From English Folk Songs in the Southern Appalachians, Sharp
Collected from Mrs. William C. Wooton, KY, 1917:

The Green Brier Shore

I am a lovely laddie and I can love long
I can love an old sweetheart till another one comes on;
I'll hug them and kiss them and keep them at ease
I'll turn my back upon them and court who I please.

At the foot of yon mountain, where fountains do flow,
Where green and wild lilies forever do grow,
I spied a fair damsel and her I adore;
I was forced to go and see her on the green brier shore.

I courted that damsel through love and good-will,
I courted that damsel, it witnessed to kill;
I courted that damsel full six months or more;
I was forced to go leave her on the green brier shore.

I had not been gone long till a letter was sent;
In the midst of that letter these few words were spelled:
Come back my own true love, it's you I adore,
And I will go with you from the green brier shore.

And when her old parents came this for to hear,
They swore they'd deprive her of her own dearest dear.
They selected an army, full twenty or more,
To fight her own true love on the green brier shore.

He drew his sword and pistol, they glistened around;
In a short length of time they fell to the ground.
Some he killed dead, and he wounded a score,
And he gained his own true love on the green brier shore.

So hard is the fortune of poor womankind;
They are always subjected and always confined,
And controlled by their parents till they are made wives,
Then they slave for their husbands all the rest of their lives.


GIRL ON THE GREENBRIAR SHORE Carter Family 1941 on bluebird

'Twas in the year of '92,
In the merry month of June,
I left my mother and a home so dear
For the girl I loved on the greenbriar shore.

My mother dear, she came to me
And said "Oh son, don't go, "
"Don't leave your mother and a home so dear
To trust a girl on the greenbriar shore. "

But I was young and reckless too,
And I craved a reckless life-
I left my mother with a broken heart
And I choosed that girl to be my wife

Her hair was dark and curly too
And her loving eyes were blue;
Her cheeks were like the red red rose
The girl I loved on the greenbriar shore.

The years rolled on and the months rolled by
She left me all alone
Now I remember what mother said
Never trust a girl on the greenbriar shore.