From Alan Lomax, The Folk Songs of North America (Doubleday, 1960, p. 531; with music):

COTTON NEEDS PICKIN'
(Adapted from a Florida song brought to Hampton Institute in Virginia and transcribed by Natalie Curtis-Burlin, Negro Folk Songs, Book 3, page 10ff. Copyright, G Schirmer, 1918. The immediate source was the singer-teacher Charity Bailey.)

CHORUS:
Cotton needs pickin' so bad, (3)
I'm gonna pick all over this world.

1 One twentieth of May morning,
Under that barnyard tree,
Them Yankees read them papers
An' sot them darkies free. (CHO.)

2 I been workin' in a contract
Ever since that day
And just found out this year
Why it didn't pay. (CHO.)

3 When boss sold that cotton
I asked for my half,
He told me I done chopped out
My half with the grass. (CHO.)

4 Boss said, 'Uncle Billy,
I think you done right well
To pay your debts with cotton
And have your seeds to sell.' (CHO.)

5 I sold them seeds this mornin'
For five cents a peck
And bought this here red handkerchief
You see around my neck. (CHO.)

6 Boy, stop goosin'* that cotton,
You better take care,
Make haste, you lazy rascal,
And bring that row from here--Oh! (CHO.)

* carelessly picking

~Masato