The Knoxville Girl

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"The Knoxville Girl" is an Appalachian murder ballad.

Video The Knoxville Girl

Origins

It is derived from the 19th-century Irish ballad "The Wexford Girl", itself derived from the earlier English ballad "The Bloody Miller or Hanged I Shall Be" about a murder in 1683 at Hogstow Mill 12 miles south of Shrewsbury This ballad was collected by Samuel Pepys who wrote about the murder of Anne Nichols by the Mill's apprentice Francis Cooper. Other versions are known as the "Waxweed Girl", "The Wexford Murder". These are in turn derived from Elizabethan era poem or broadside ballad, "The Cruel Miller".

Possibly modelled on the 17th century broadside William Grismond's Downfall, or A Lamentable Murther by him Committed at Lainterdine in the county of Hereford on March 12, 1650: Together with his lamentation., sometimes known as The Bloody Miller.

Maps The Knoxville Girl

Lyrics

First lines:

I met a little girl in Knoxville,

A town we all know well,

And every Sunday evening,

Out in her home I'd dwell.

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Variants

Related or derived broadsides include:

• "The Wexford Girl"
• "Hanged I Shall Be" (Philip Henry's Diaries and Letters, 20 February 1684, ed. M. H. Lee, 1882, p. 323)
• "Rose Connelley" (various spellings, also known as "Down in the Willow Garden").
• "Knoxville Girl"
• "William Grismond"

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Recordings

Samples

• Plan B in the bootleg mash-up "Paint It Blacker" (2007) as a reference to violent music existing before modern rap.

Parodies

• Patrick Sky on his album Songs That Made America Famous, as "Yonkers Girl".
• GG Allin on his album Carnival of Excess, as "Watch Me Kill".

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Bibliography

• Collin Escott. Roadkill on the Three-chord Highway: Art and Trash in American Popular Music. New York: Routledge, 2002.

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Notes

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References

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External links

• "The Knoxville Girl". discogs.com. 

Source of the article : Wikipedia