Folk Songs from the Southern Highlands - online songbook

Southern Appalachians songs with lyrics, commentary & some sheet music.

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Tom Dooley
114 TOM DOOLEY See Brown, p. 11. This is another song, based on a real tragedy in North Carolina, in which the young man sings that he was warned,
"That drinking and the women Would be my ruin at last"
A
Obtained form Mrs. William Franklin, Crossnore, Avery County, North Carolina, July, 1930, who learned it from her brother, Edmund Malone Johnson.
i. (>h, bow your head, Tom Dooley; Oh, bow your head and cry; You have killed poor Laury Foster And you know you're bound to die.
2. You have killed poor Laury Foster; You know you have done wrong; You have killed poor Laury Foster, Your true love in your arms.
3. I take my banjo this evening; I pick it on my knee;
This time tomorrow evening It will be of no use to me.
4. This day and one more;
Oh, where do you reckon I be ? This day and one more, And I'll be in eternity.
5.1 had my trial at Wilkesboro; Oh, what do you reckon they done ? They bound me over to Statesville And there where I'll be hung.
6. The limb being oak
And the rope being strong — Oh, bow your head, Tom Dooley, For you know you are bound to hang.
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