From English Folk Songs from the Southern Appalachians, Sharp. Collected from Mary Wilson and Mrs. Townley, Kentucky, 1917
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Once there was a little tailor boy
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About sixteen years of age;
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My father hired me to a miller
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That I might learn the trade.
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I fell in love with a Knoxville girl,
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Her name was Flora Dean.
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Her rosy cheeks, her curly hair,
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I really did admire.
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Her father he persuaded me
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To take Flora for a wife;
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The devil he persuaded me
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To take Flora's life.
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Up stepped her mother so bold and gay,
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So boldly she did stand;
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Johnny dear, go marry her
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And take her off my hands.
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I went unto her father's house
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About nine o'clock at night,
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A-asking her to take a walk
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To do some prively talk.
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We had not got so very far
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Till looking around and around,
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He stooping down picked up a stick
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And knocks little Flora down.
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She fell upon her bended knees,
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For mercy she did cry:
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O Johnny dear, don't murder me,
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For I'm not fit to die.
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I took her by her lily-white hands
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A-slung her around and around;
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I drug her off to the river-side,
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And plunged her in to drown.
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I returned back to my miller's house
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About nine o'clock at night,
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But little did my miller know
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What I had been about.
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The miller turned around and about,
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Said:" Johnny, what blooded your clothes?"
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Me being so apt to take a hint:
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By bleeding at the nose.
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About nine or ten days after that,
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Little Flora she was found
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A-floating down by her father's house
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Who lived in Knoxville town.
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Oxford Tragedy (Traditional version )
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| Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds |
