BLACK GIRL, BLACK GIRL (WHERE DID YOU SLEEP LAST NIGHT?)
(learned from an unidentified tape in the 1960s)
Black girl, black girl, don't lie to me,
Where'd you get those pretty shoes,
My daddy was a railroad man,
I wish to the lord I'd never been born,
Black girl, black girl, tell me, where will you go?
The longest train I ever did ride
Them long steel rails and them short crossties
Longest old train in this whole wide world
(seems to be a blend of a blues ballad and a railroad song) (from miriam berg's folksong collection)
Tell me, where did you sleep last night?
In the pines, in the pines, where the sun never shines,
And I shivered in the cold desert breeze.
And the dress you wear so fine?
I got my shoes from a railroad man,
Got my dress from a man in the mine.
Lived on the outskirts of town.
They found his head on the railroad track,
But his body ain't never been found.
Or died when I was young.
I'd never have kissed your sweet, sweet lips,
Nor heard your lyin' tongue.
I'm goin' where the cold winds blow.
Gonna dance in my good Sunday clothes,
Gonna weep, gonna mourn, gonna dance till I cry.
Was a hundred coaches long.
The only woman I ever did love
She's on that train and gone.
Ain't got no end, I know.
On these long steel rails and short crossties
I'm tramping my way back home.
Comes around Joe Brown's coal mine.
Headlight comes 'round when the sun comes up,
The caboose when the sun goes down.