Fare Thee Well (Dink's Song)

In the Best Loved American Folk Songs collection, John Lomax says he collected this song in 1904 from a woman identified only as "Dink", whom he met in a levee builders' camp on the Brazos river in Texas. He describes it as a variant of another song, "Careless Love", with which it shares several verses, and he writes,

The one-line refrain, as Dink sang it in her soft lovely voice, gave the effect of a sobbing woman, deserted by her man. Dink's tune is really lost; what is left is only a shadow of the tender, tragic beauty of what she sang in the sordid, bleak surroundings of a Brazos Bottom levee camp.^[1]

Though the the song shares floating verses and some common tropes with other pieces of the period, many collectors classify it as a separate song rather than a derived variation.

The Johns' version was released as track 5 on C-Sides.

Lyrics

These lyrics are based on the version performed by the Longest Johns in their livestreams, the original lyrics can be found here.

If I had wings like Noah's dove
I'd fly up the river to the one I love

{Chorus}
Fare thee well, oh honey
Fare thee well

I had a man who was long and tall
He moved his body like a cannon ball

{Chorus}

I remember one evening, in the pouring rain,
In my heart was an aching pain

{Chorus}

So sure as a bird, flying high above
Life ain't worth living without the one you love

{Chorus}

Fare thee well

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↑ https://mudcat.org/Detail.CFM?messages__Message_ID=2044433

[1] ttps://mudcat.org/Detail.CFM?messages__Message_ID=2044433

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