Buell Kazee - The Butcher's boy/ The Railroad Boy

This song appeared on the influential Anthology of American Folk Music (1952)

And over my coffin, place a snow white dove
To warn this world that I died for love

sad; sad
 
sung by Buell Kazee (1900-1976)

and also by Joan Baez and Bob Dylan




Too bad I can't find the one I heard the other night, by this band. It was better than this one above. I think.


Lyrics as performed by Bob Dylan and Joan Baez, Hughes Stadium, Colorado
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.