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Banks of the Pontchartrain

KDM Broadside Continued …

KDM Traditional Ballad Lyrics chosen for the music project arrangement …

It was on one bright March morn I bid New Orleans adieu,

And I took the road to Jackson town, me fortune to renew.

I cursed all of my foreign money, no credit could I gain

Which filled my heart with longin' for the Lakes of the Pontchartrain.

I stepped on board a railroad car beneath the morning sun,

And I rode the rails ‘til avenin’ time and laid me down again.

All strangers there, no friends to me 'til a dark girl towards me came,

And I fell in love with a Creole girl from the Banks of the Pontchartrain.

I said “My pretty Creole girl, me money is no good,

And if it weren't for the ‘gators I'd sleep out here in the woods.”

“You're welcome here kind stranger. Our house it's very plain.

We’ll ne’er turn out a stranger at the Lakes of the Pontchartrain.”

She took me to her mother's house and treated me quite well.

The hair upon her shoulders in jet black ringlets fell.

To try and paint her beauty I'm sure it would be in vain,

So handsome was my Creole girl from the Banks of the Pontchartrain.

I asked her if she'd marry me, she'd said it’d never be

For she had a lover, and he was far out at sea.

She said that she would wait for him and true she would remain,

'Til he returned for his Creole girl from the Banks of the Pontchartrain.

So fair thee well me bonny girl I’ll never see you more.

I'll ne'er forget her kindness at the cottage by the shore,

And at each social gathering a flowin' glass I'll raise.

I’ll drink a health to me Creole girl from the Lakes of Pontchartrain.

The Milneburg train ran on a line from the harbor in around 1836 and eventually

connected with another railway system around Lake Pontchartrain that became known

as the Great Northern Railway that was in operation into the 1860s.

Continued …

KelticDead Music