The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #28033   Message #6417
Posted By: Cathub@bellsouth.net
08-Jun-97 - 06:23 AM
Thread Name: Origins: Knoxville Girl
Subject: Lyr Add: THE KNOXVILLE GIRL (from Vance Randolph)
Check out Vance Randolph's collection of Ozark folksongs. In volume II, Songs of the South and West you'll find "The Noel Girl" plus several variations "The Expert Girl" or "The Rexford Girl" or "The Oxford Girl."

Away down in Knoxville town I used to live and dwell,
And in that little Knoxville town I owned a flourmill.

I fell in love with a Knoxville girl with pink and rosy eyes.
I promised her I'd marry her if me she'd never deny.

We walked along and talked along till we come to a level ground,
And I picked up a heavy stick and I knocked this little girl down.

She fell upon her bending knees. "Oh, Willie, have mercy!" she cried.
"Oh, Willie, my dear, don't murder me here, for I'm not prepared to die."

I laughed at every word she said. I beat her more and more.
I beat her till the ground around to ... a bloody...

I took her by her lily-white hair. I drug her round and round.
I drug her to the still water deep that flows to Knoxville town.

A dreadful trick we played her. This Knoxville girl was found
A-floating down the still water deep that flows to Knoxville town.

Her sister swore my life away. She swore without a doubt.
She swore I was the very man that laid her sister out.

And now they're going to hang me, a dreadful death to die.
And now they're going to hang me between the earth and sky.

HTML line breaks added. --JoeClone, 12-Jun-02.