"Cindy" (Traditional American Folk Song)
Words and Music -- anonymous

[Source: No. 119 (page 233) from
"Folk Songs of North Americs" by Alan Lomax;
includes words and melody, with suggested Guitar
and Banjo strumming styles and chords]

1. Well Massa bought a yaller gal,
He bought her from the South,
Her hair it curled so very tight,
She could not shut her mouth.

CHORUS [sung after each verse]
Get along home,
Get along home,
Get along home, Cindy, Cindy.
Mary you some day.

2. He took her to the blacksmith shop
To have her mouth made small,
She backed her ears and gapped her mouth
And swallowed shop and all.

3. Cindy is a pretty gal,
She comes from the South,
She’s so sweet the honey bees
Swarm all around her mouth.

4. I been to the East and to the West,
I been to the jaybird’s altar,
But the prettiest gal I ever seen
Was Jimmie Shirland’s daughter.

5. She hugged me and she kissed me,
She wrang her hands and sighed,
She swore I was the prettiest man
That evver lived or died.

6. Apples in the summertime,
Peaches in the fall,
If I can’t have my Cindy gal,
I won’t take none at all.

7. Finger-rings, finger-rings,
Shine like glittering gold,
How I loved that pretty girl,
It never can be told.