My baby's gone and I don't know why
she let out this morning
Like a rusty shot in a hollow sky
left me without warning
Sooner than the dogs could bark
and faster than the sun rose
Down to the banks in an old mule car
she took a flatboat across the shallow

CHORUS:
Left me in my tears to drown
she left a baby daughter
Now the water's wide and deep and brown
she's crossing muddy waters

Tobacco standing in the fields
be rotten come November
And a bitter heart will not reveal
A spring that love remembers
When that sweet brown girl of mine
her black eyes are ravens
We broke the bread and drank the wine
From a jug that she'd been saving

CHORUS

Baby's crying and the daylight's gone
that big oak tree is groaning
In rush of wind and river of song
I can hear my sweetheart moaning
Crying for her baby child
or crying for her husband
Crying for that river's wild
to take her from her loved ones

CHORUS TWICE