Know something about this song or lyrics?
Add it to our wiki.
When I was a young girl I used to seek pleasure
When I was a young girl I used to drink ale
Out of the ale house down into the jail house
My body's salvated and hell is my doom
Come mama come papa and sit you down by me
Come sit you down by me and pity my case
My poor head is aching my sad heart in breaking
My body's salvating and hell is my doom
Please send for the preacher to come and pray for me
And send for the doctor to heal all my wounds
My poor head is aching my sad heart in breaking
My body's salvating and I'm bound to die
One morning one morning one morning in may
I saw this young lady all wrapped in white linen
All wrapped in white linen and called out "the plague"
When I was a young girl I used to drink ale
Out of the ale house down into the jail house
My body's salvated and hell is my doom
Come mama come papa and sit you down by me
Come sit you down by me and pity my case
My poor head is aching my sad heart in breaking
My body's salvating and hell is my doom
Please send for the preacher to come and pray for me
And send for the doctor to heal all my wounds
My poor head is aching my sad heart in breaking
My body's salvating and I'm bound to die
One morning one morning one morning in may
I saw this young lady all wrapped in white linen
All wrapped in white linen and called out "the plague"
Add your thoughts
Log in now to tell us what you think this song means.
Don’t have an account? Create an account with SongMeanings to post comments, submit lyrics, and more. It’s super easy, we promise!
sniff.numachi.com/pages/…
Also, "salivated" is apparently a reference to the excessive amount of saliva produced by people suffering from mercury poisoning, in this case brought on by ingesting mercury in order to combat the syphilis.
When I was, a young girl I used to seek pleasure,
When I was a young girl I used to drink ale;
Right out of the alehouse and into the jailhouse,
Out of a barroom and down to my grave.
Come Papa, come Mama, and sit you down by me,
Come sit you down by me and pity my case;
My poor head is aching, my sad heart is breaking,
My body's salivated and I'm bound to die.
Go send for the preacher to come and pray for me;
Go send for the doctor to heal up my wounds;
My poor head is aching, my sad heart is breaking,
My body's salivated, and Hell is my doom.
I want four young ladies to bear up my coffin,
I want three young maidens to carry me on,
And each of them carry a bunch of wild roses,
To lay on my body as I pass along.
One morning, one morning, one morning in May,
I spied this young lady all clad in white linen,
All clad in white linen and cold as the clay.
Then again, it does sound an awful lot like "called out the plague," so I'm going to guess Feist just misheard the lyrics when she incorporated them into this song.
A woman wrapped in white linen who calls out the plague. This makes me think of a Sin Eater. The Sin Eater's job is to free one who is dying of their sins by eating usually a piece of bread if I recall correctly symbolizing the sins of the condemned so they do not go to hell.