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Our Singing Country |
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My mother's in her cold, cold grave,
My father's gone away,
My sister married a gambling man.
And I have gone astray,
And I have gone astray, poor boy,
And I have gone astray,
My sister married a gambling man,
And I have gone astray. |
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LITTLE WILLIE'S MY DARLIN'
c. No. 98. Acc. on guitar and sung- by George W. Smith, Raleigh, N.C., 1934. See L0.2, p. 147} also numerĀous recordings, "Twenty-one Years," "An Answer to Twenty-one Years," etc.
With "Home on the Range," "Frankie and Albert," "The Red River Valley," "St. Louis Blues," and a few others, this is among the best known American folk tunes. Popularized over the air and on commercial records, it has grown from its humble "Down in the Valley" theme to be best known of all jailhouse songs. "Twenty-one Years," "An Answer to Twenty-one Years" are two of the prodigious family of parodies it has fathered. "Little Willie," sung by a Negro convict in North Carolina, has more charm than any other version we have heard. |
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