Baby's gone and I don't know why She let out this morning Like a rusty shot in a hollow sky She left me without warning Sooner than the dogs could bark And faster than the sun rose Down to the banks on an old mule car She took a flatboat across the shallows Left me in my tears to drown She left a baby daughter Now the river's wide and deep and brown And 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 Hair black as a raven We broke the bread and drank her wine From a jug that she'd been saving Baby's crying and the daylight's gone That big oak tree is groaning In a rush of wind and a river of song I can hear my true love moaning Crying for her baby child Oh, crying for her husband Crying for that river's wild To take her from her loved ones Now the river's wide and deep and brown And she's crossing muddy waters