(Original by John Hiatt) 



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 

REPEAT 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 

REPEAT CHORUS TWICE