Poor Susie Dean
by Marie Marshall
Child Ballad 65: I love playing with themes of traditional ballads. This is an imagined Appalachian or Bluegrass version of a song we know in Dundee as ‘Bonnie Susie Cleland’. It has hints of miscegenation and infanticide in it (in the Scottish version the eponymous Susie falls for an Englishman).
Susie Dean and Billy Blue they ran away, ran away,
Susie Dean and Billy Blue they ran away.
Susie Dean she ran away,
But they catch’d her yesterday.
Now they’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.
What’s that pretty little bundle by your side, by your side,
What’s that pretty little bundle by your side?
That’s no bundle by my side,
but my little dog that died.
Now they’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.
Won’t someone find a fearless little boy, little boy,
Won’t someone find a fearless little boy?
Well here comes a little boy’ll
take a message to your joy
That they’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.
Her father paid one dollar to a man, to a man,
Her father paid one dollar to a man.
Her father paid a man,
And through the town he ran,
Sayin’ “They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.”
Her brother built the gallows strong and high, strong and high,
Her brother built the gallows strong and high.
He built the gallows high,
Sayin’ “Susie, you must die!”
Now they’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They’re gonna hang poor Susie Dean.
They hanged poor Susie Dean at noon today, noon today,
They hanged poor Susie Dean at noon today.
She was hanged at noon today,
And now all the people say,
That they went and hanged poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They went and hanged poor Susie Dean.
It weren’t for Billy Blue that Susie died, Susie died,
It weren’t for Billy Blue that Susie died.
It weren’t for him she died,
But the bundle at her side
That they went and hanged poor Susie Dean, Susie Dean,
They went and hanged poor Susie Dean.
Marie Marshall 
Those were difficult times… Poor Susie!
heart touching
my wife plays clawhammer style banjo and my son plays mando and fiddle (not at the same time). the old ballads are so dark and earthy. shady grove is an appalachian variant of matty groves. fairport convention did a brilliant matty groves with sandy denny singing. trhen, after she died, the band played ith with richard thompson singing, changed Lord Donald to Lord Arnold
my mother played guitar long before I (firstborn) came along. I have never heard her play (the strings on her guitar were gone and she never replaced them) but I saw songs in her guitar book(s) – Big Rock Candy Mountain and the “Barbara Allen” which in NC was pronounced “Barbree” just as my first sister Martha and my great-grandmother was pronounced “Marthee” – fascinated by your take – the more mysterious (to me) the greater my delight in reading you.