The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #127487   Message #2845595
Posted By: Goose Gander
21-Feb-10 - 04:26 AM
Thread Name: lyr/Origins: Pretty polly (Knife in the Window)
Subject: RE: lyr/Origins: Pretty polly (Knife in the Window
There's an unaccompanied version of this song, sung by Jim Garland, at Just Something My Uncle Told Me from the field recordings of Lou Curtis. Quite a bit of interesting stuff at this site, actually, but not for the squeamish . . .

CRAWLING AND CREEPING

Early one morning, come crawling & creeping
I spied a fair maiden while snoring and sleeping

Lay over, lay over
Lay your left leg over mine

I said, "Fair maid, may I come to bed to you?"
She stood and replied, "I'm afraid you'll undo me"

Lay over, lay over
Lay your left leg over mine

"Oh, no fair maid I won't undo you"
She stood and replied, "Then come to bed to me."

Lay over, lay over
Lay your left leg over mine

"You got on drawers and I can't undo them."
"You got on drawers and I can't undo them."
"You got on drawers and I can't undo them."
She stood and replied, "Just take your knife to them.

Lay over, lay over
Lay your left leg over mine

I haen't a knife since I can remember
I haen't a knife since I can remember
Well, I haen't a knife since I can remember
She stood and replied, "There's one in the winda."

Lay over, lay over
Lay your left leg over mine

In about nine months and wasn't that a wonder.
In about nine months and wasn't that a wonder.
In about nine months and wasn't that a wonder.
That I hadn't been killed in that lightnin' and thunder.

Lay over, lay over
Lay your left leg over mine

Notes:
"Jim Garland's version of Crawling and Creeping is likewise fairly close to its British prototype, e.g. Harry Cox's Nancy and Johnny on EFDSS lp 1004 or Ernest Austin's Knife in the Window on Topic 12T243. The latter text is combined, as frequently happens, with the ancient Hares on the Mountain, parent of the ubiquitous Roll Your Leg Over. In the Appalachians, there has been a tendency to detach the song from the original story; another version (from North Carolina) I have heard appends to a text like Jim's:

Well, I jumped right out and shit in the floor
Said, "It's been good pussy but it won't no more" (sic)
In about nine months she fell to weeping
'Long came a bastard crawling and a-creeping
I went to the doctor with a hack and a cough
Said "I can save your dick but your balls'll rot off."

The Spence Moore link from the Digital Library of Appalachia I posted above doesn't seem to be working, but the problem seems to be with the site itself(?) . . .