The Butcher Boy

well i figure i'll start you guys off with the lyrics to an old folk song called "the butcher boy." there are two versions, one with a railroad boy from london town and another with a butcher boy from yonder town, but both are called "the butcher boy." so depending on how ya sing it, you may be singin a song called "the butcher boy" that doesn't talk about one... but it's a tragic story and an intense song. sung by Buell Kazee, the Clancy Brothers later did a version that sounds completley different than his. their version's probably closer to the traditional song from way back, but how you sing it's really all up to you.

she went upstairs to make her bed
and not one word to her mother said
her mother she went upstairs too
said, "daughter dear daughter, what's troublin you?"
"oh mother oh mother, i cannot tell
that railroad (butcher) boy that i loved so well
he courted me my whole life away
and now at home will no longer stay
there is a place in london (younder) town
where my love goes and sits him down
he takes that strange girl on his knee
and tells to her what he won't tell me"
her father he came home from work
said, "where's my daughter, she seemed so hurt"
he went upstairs to give her hope
and found her there hanging by a rope
he took his knife and cut her down
and on her chest these words he found,
"go and dig my grave both wide and deep
put a marble slab at my head and feet
and over my grave put a snow white dove
to warn the world that i died of love"