Digital Tradition Mirror

Belle Starr

(This score available as ABC, SongWright, PostScript, PNG, or PMW, or a MIDI file)
Pennywhistle notation and Dulcimer tab for this song is also available

Belle Starr
(Woody Guthrie)

Belle Starr, Belle Starr, tell me where you have gone
Since old Oklahoma's sand hills you did roam?
Is it Heaven's wide streets that you're tying the reins
Or single footing somewheres below

Eight lovers they say combed your waving black hair
Eight men knew the feel of your dark velvet waist
Eight men heard the sounds of your tan leather skirt
Eight men heard the bark of the guns that you wore

Cole Younger was your first and the father of your girl
And the name that you picked for your daughter was Pearl
Cole robbed a bank and he drawed the life line
But I heard he was pardoned after twenty years time

Your Cherokee love, Blue Duck was his name
He loved you in the sand hill before your great fame
I heard he stopped a bullet in 1885
And your Blue Duck's no longer alive

You took Jim Reed to your warm wedded bed
And from out of your love was born the boy, Ed
A pal killed Jim Reed by the dark of the moon
And your son Ed was blowed down in a drunken saloon

Then there was Bob Younger, you loved him well
He rode with the James boys out down the long trail
They caught him in Minnesota along with the gang
He died down in jail in the cell or the chain

You loved Mr. William Clarke Quantrill
And his Civil War guerrillas in the Missouri hills
He hit Lawrence Kansas and fought them still
And when he rode out, two hundred lay killed

They say could have, they whispered you might
Have loved Frank James on a couple of nights
He fought the Midland Railroad almost to death
Then in 1915 Frank drawed his last breath

They say it could be, they say maybe so
That you loved Jesse James, that desperado
Jesse got married, had a wife and a son
Was shot down at home by the Ford brothers' guns

Belle Starr, Belle Starr, your time's getting late
But how is Jim Younger, did you hear his fate?
He was jailed and then pardoned for all he had done
And he blowed his own brains out in nineteen and one


Eight lovers they say combed your waving black hair
Eight men knew the feel of your dark velvet waist
Eight men heard the sounds of your tan leather skirt
Eight men heard the bark of the guns that you wore
Belle Starr, Belle Starr, tell me where you have gone
Since old Oklahoma's sand hills you did roam?
Is it Heaven's wide streets that you're tying the reins
Or single footing somewheres below

Tune by Pete Seeger and Jack Elliot
Copyright Sing Out
SOF

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!