“The Lost Girl”
Description
The singer meets a girl who confesses to being lost and far from home. She has left her family to escape from the boys. She warns maidens against men
Supplemental text
Lost Girl, The
Partial text(s)
*** A ***
From Vance Randolph, Ozark Folksongs, Volume I, #60, pp. 271-272.
Collected from Charles Ingenthron of Walnut Shade, Missouri,
March 2, 1941.
One morning, one morning, one morning in Spring,
The birds in the desert so loudly did sing,
I met a fair damsel in the desert alone,
Oh she says I'm a poor lost girl, and a long ways from home.
I stepped up to her, her features to see,
And making so freely her pardon I asked,
And making so freely in the desert alone,
Oh she says I'm a poor lost girl and a long ways from home!
(4 additional stanzas)
Notes
This is about half floating verses ("I'll build me a castle on youn mound so high," "Come all ye young maidens, take warning from me, Don't place your affections on a green willow tree"), and the final line of several stanzas ("Oh she says I'm a poor lost girl and a long ways from home"). Randolph lists many songs with similar elements, most of which I ended up filing under "The Poor Stranger (Two Strangers in the Mountains Alone)". But the whole seems to be unique. - RBW
Cross references
- cf. "The Poor Stranger (Two Strangers in the Mountains Alone)" (theme)
References
- Randolph 60, "The Lost Girl" (1 text, 1 tune)
- ST R060 (Partial)
- Roud #272
- BI, R060