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 

Faster than the sun rose 

Down to the banks on an old mule car 

She took a flat boat ‘cross the shallows 



CHORUS: 

Left me in my tears to drown 

She left a baby daughter 

Now the river's wide and deep and brown 

She's crossing muddy waters 



Tobacco standing in my fields 

Be rotten come November 

And 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 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 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 



CHORUS 



Now the river's wide and deep and brown 

She's crossing muddy waters