The Butcher Boy (studio version)

A sampler from Canadian folk musician Jesse Ferguson's 2014 album, The Butcher Boy, here is the title track. The song is based on several early broadside ballads, but has been taken up into the folk tradition. Chords and lyrics below.

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The Butcher Boy
(traditional, arrang. J. Ferguson, 2020)

Intro: G F C

V1.
G F C
In Dublin city where I did dwell
F G
a butcher boy I loved right well.
Am D
He courted me my life away,
G F C
but now with me he will not stay.

V2.
I wish, I wish, I wish in vain:
I wish I was a maid again.
But maid again I ne'er will be
'til cherries grow on an ivy tree.

V3.
I wish, I wish my baby was born
and sitting on his daddy's knee
and me, poor girl, to be dead and gone
with the long, green grass growing over me.

V4.
She went upstairs to go to bed
and calling to her mother said,
"Give me a chair 'til I sit down
and a pen and ink 'til I write down."

V5.
At every word she shed a tear;
at every line cried, "Willie dear!
Oh, what a foolish girl was I
to be led astray by a butcher boy."

V6.
He went upstairs, and the door he broke.
He found her hanging from a rope.
He took his knife, and he cut her down.
And in her pocket, these words he found:

V7.
"Oh, dig my grave both wide and deep.
Put marble stones at my head and feet,
and in the middle, a turtle dove
so the world may know I died for love."