Crossing Muddy Waters

Baby's gone and I don't know why

She let out this mornin'

Like a rusty shot in a hollow sky

She left me without warnin'

Sooner than the dogs could bark

Faster than a sun rose

Down to the banks on an old mule car

She took a flatboat 'cross the shallow

Left me in my tears to drown

She left a baby daughter

Now the river's wide and deep and brown

She's crossin' muddy waters

Tobacco standin' 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 the wine

From a jug that she'd been savin'

Left me in my tears to drown

She left a baby daughter

Now the river's wide and deep and brown

She's crossin' muddy waters

Baby's cryin' 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 moanin'

Cryin' for her baby child

Or cryin' for her husband

Cryin' for that river's wild

To take her from her loved ones

Left me in my tears to drown

She left a baby daughter

Now the river's wide and deep and brown

She's crossin' muddy waters

Now the river's wide and deep and brown

She's crossin' muddy waters