Bonnie Black Bess (OT2003-3012-001)

Bonnie Black Bess (OT2003-3012-001)

Song excerpted from audio recording OT2003-3012, part of VFC2003-0007 Margaret MacArthur Collection.

Margaret MacArthur Collection -- VFC2003-0007. Vermont Folklife Center Archive, Vermont Folklife Center, Middlebury, Vermont, United States of America.

1964-07-15

en

VFC2003-0007 OT2003-3012-001

Vermont Folklife Center

Bonnie Black Bess

Bonnie Black Bess (II)

Folk Music Index (http://www.ibiblio.org/folkindex)

[Singing starts at: 1:42]

When blindness did guide me I left my abode
And friends proved ungrateful I took to the road
For to plunder the wealthy and relieve the distress
I bought you to aid me my bonnie Black Bess

O'er hills and o'er valleys through glens I rode you
From London to Yorkshire like lightning you flew
No toll bars could stop you and rivers you did breast
In twelve hours you reached it my bonnie Black Bess

Hark the bloodhounds are howling and bugles loud sound
And the likes your noble they never can crown
To part with you now it does me so oppress
Be it farewell forever my bonnie Black Bess

Oh how nobly you stood when a carriage I stopped
And the gold and the jewels from its inmates I took
No poor man did I plunder or ever yet oppress
No widow no orphan my bonnie Black Bess

As ages roll downward and I'm dead and gone
This tale will be told from the father to the son
And some they will pity while others will confess
Twas through friendship I shot you my bonnie Black Bess

And wo one will say that ingratitude dwelt
In the breast of Dick Turpin twas a vice he never felt
But I'll die like a man and soon be at rest
So farewell forever my bonnie Black Bess

References used during transcription:

• Laws index number L9. Laws, G. Malcolm. Native American Balladry. University of Texas Press (1964).
• Macarthur, Margaret. "The Search for More Songs from the Hills of Vermont." http://www.cdss.org/tl_files/cdss/newsletter_archives/supplements/summer%202011_coldbrook_macarthur.pdf

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