Digital Tradition Mirror

The Prisoner's Song

(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

The Prisoner's Song

Oh I wish I had someone to love me
Someone to call me her own,
Oh I wish I had someone to live with
For I'm tired of living alone.

Oh please meet me tonight in the moonlight
Plwease meet me tonight all alone
For I have a sad story to tell you
It's a story that's never been told.

I'll be carried to the new jail tomorrow
Leavin' my poor darlin' alone
With the cold prison bars all around me
And my head on a pillow of stone

Now I have a grand ship on the ocean
All mounted with silver and gold
And before my poor darling would suffer.
Oh that ship would be anchored and sold.

Now if I had wings like an angel
Over these prison walls I would fly.
And I'd fly to the arms of my poor darling
And there I'd be willing to die.

Note: From Vernon Dalhart recording, 1924. This was the flip
     side of Wreck of the old 97, and Dahlhart made several cover
     versions for some 30 different labels. This was clearly the
     single most popular record ---of any type--- produced at the
     time, with reported sales up in the billions of records
     being reported. A decade later, Acuff covered it, and sold
     another million or so.
RG

Thanks to Mudcat for the Digital Tradition!