Artist: Kelly Harrell
Author: traditional
Label: Victor
Year: 1925
Murder ballad. Roud #77 (also as Brisk Young Sailor, Bold Young Farmer, Died For Love and I Wish My Baby Was Born while in America as The Railroad Boy en Go Dig My Grave). Kelly recorded Butcher Boy twice; once without-, once with electricity. Reissued on JSP box set Worried Blues. Harrell wrote Away Out In The Mountain, a big hit for Jimmie Rodgers.
Covers:
Buell Kazee [as The Butcher Boy; version also appeared on Harry Smith's Anthology of American Folk Music]
Shirley Collins [as Died For Love]
Joan Baez [as The Railroad Boy; Joan & Bob performed it together during the Rolling Thunder Tour in '76]
Bob Dylan [as Railroad Boy on Minnesota Tape I]
Frank Proffitt [as Morning Fair]
Jody Miller [as The Railroad Boy]
Jean Ritchie & Doc Watson [as Go Dig My Grave]
Martin Carthy [as Died For Love]
Blues Project [as Railroad Boy]
Richard & Linda Thompson [as Died For Love]
John Renbourn [als A Bold Young Farmer]
Kirsty MacColl [on the audiocassette version of Patrick McCabe's novel The Butcher Boy]
Damien Jurado [on Holding His Breath EP]
Elvis Costello [on The Harry Smith Project Revisited]
Gov't Mule [as Railroad Boy]
Unthanks [as Died For Love]
Mary Wallopers [the Clancy Brothers way]
Lankum [as Go Dig My Grave]
The storyline of the young woman more inclined to hang herself than to admit her pregnancy, echoes 18th century old English ballads as The Cruel Father, There's An Ale House In Yonder Town, In London City Where I Did Dwell and In Tarrytown. The story also circulated as a broadside in the 18th century (The Berkshire Tragedy and The Wittam Miller). The Butcher Boy is also an Irish film and an Irish bestselling novel by Patrick McCabe.
If you noticed blunt omissions, mis-interpretations or even out-and-out errors,
please let me know:
Arnold Rypens
Rozenlaan 65
B-2840 Reet (Rumst)