Railroad Boy

University, Fort Collins, CO, 23 May 1976,

transcribed by Manfred Helfert.

She went upstairs to make her bed

And not one word to her mother said.

Her mother she went upstairs too

Saying, "Daughter, oh daughter, what's troublin' you?":

"Oh mother, oh mother, I cannot tell

That railroad boy that I love so well.

He courted me my life away

And now at home will no longer stay."

"There is a place in yonder town

Where my love goes and he sits him down.

And he takes that strange girl on his knee

And he tells to her what he won't tell me."

Her father he came home from work

Sayin', "Where is my daughter, she seems so hurt"

He went upstairs to give her hope

An' he found her hangin' by a rope.

He took his knife and he cut her down

And on her bosom these words he found:

"Go dig my grave both wide and deep,

Put a marble stone at my head and feet,

And on my breast, put a snow white dove

To warn the world that I died of love.