These chains of sorrow, they are heavy, it is true And these locks cannot be broken, No, not with one thousand keys O Jailer, you drag a ball-n-chain you cannot...

I met a little girl in Knoxville A town we all know well And every sunday evening In her home I'd dwell We went to take an evening walk About a mile from town I...

I've seen your fairground hair, Your seaside eyes Your vampire tooth, your little truth Your tiny lies I know your trembling hand, your guilty prize Your sleep...

They're gonna lay me low (Lay me low) They're gonna sink me in the snow They're gonna throw back their heads and crow When I go They're gonna jump and shout (L...

C'mon, kind Sir, let's walk outside And breathe the autumn air See the many that have lived and died See the unending golden stair See all of us that have come ...

You found me at some party You thought I'd understand You barreled over to me With a drink in each hand I respect your beliefs, girl, And I consider you a frien...

Janey´s gone now and she won´t be back no more It was only yesterday I went knocking on her door Now she´s gone away We won´t see her no more Little Janey´s go...

(D Del, M Wilkins) She walks these hills in a long black veil She visits my grave when the night winds wail Nobody knows, nobody sees Nobody knows but me Ten ...

Oh, plane, take me away Said, I'll be sittin' here for the rest of my life And I am really scared-- Nick's not coming tonight And brother, I can't even think o...

Written by Tim Rose Yeah, they came to take me away Said I'd be sitting here for the rest of my life But I don't really care - I shot my wife And brother, I ca...

Original version of Henry Lee Nick's version is also available "Get down, get down, Love Henry," she cried, "And stay all night with me I have gold chains, and ...

I hold this letter in my hand A plea, a petition, a kind of prayer I hope it does as I have planned Losing her again is more than I can bear I kiss the cold, wh...

There she stands, this lovely creature There she stands, there she stands With her hair full of ribbons And green gloves on her hands So I asked this lovely cre...

There's a devil waiting outside your door (How much longer?) There's a devil waiting outside your door It is bucking and braying and pawing at the floor And he'...

Last night I lay trembling The moon it was low It was the end of love Of misery and woe Then suddenly above me Her face buried in light Came a vision of beauty...

Nick covered this in a segment in September Songs: A Tribute to Kurt Weill See the shark with teeth like razors And he wears them in his face And Macheath has ...

I was born in a motel room The night my Daddy lost his jo Just after one, he pulled a gun And blew the brains out of some poor slo They call me mamma They call...

I stood in the water In the middle month of winter My camel skin was torture I was in a state of nature The wind, sir, it was wicked I was so alone Just as I pr...

I hope you're sitting comfortably I saved you the best seat in the house Right up in the front row The stars have been torn down The moon is locked away And the...

Mister frog went a-courting and he did ride Uh-hmm, Uh-hmm Mister frog went a-courting and he did ride A sword and pistol by his side Uh-hmm, Uh-hmm He went do...

Nick performed this for the Italian film Mojo, and it is available on a CD called Soho They call him Joe The Dragon He's on the water wagon He's got that look ...

I have a friend in you, oh Mr Clarinet You make me laugh, and then cry like the song of the clarinet Marry me, marry me alive O I put on my coat of trumpets Wil...

(J Bundrick) Mary, grab the baby, the river's rising Muddy water taking back the land The old-frame house, she can't take-a one more beating Ain't no use to st...

Well ah jumpt! and fled this fucken heap on doctored wings Mah flailin pinions, with splints and rags and crutches! (Damn things nearly hardly flap) Canker upon...

I was just a boy when I sat down To watch the news on TV I saw some ordinary slaughter I saw some routine atrocity My father said, don't look away You got to be...

One morn I awakened A new sun was shining The sky was a Kingdom All covered in blood The moon and the stars Where the troops that lay conquered Like fruit left ...

Nick the stripper Hideous to the eye Hideous to the ee He's a fat little insect A fat little insect And OOOOOOHHHH! Here we go again Nick the stripper Dances o...

I've searched the holy books I tried to unravel the mystery of Jesus Christ, the saviour I've read the poets and the analysts Searched through the books on huma...

Pass me that lovely little gun My dear, my darting one The cleaners are coming, one by one You don't even want to let them start They are knocking now upon you...

I am tall and I am thin Of an enviable hight And I've been known to be quite handsome In a certain angle and in certain light Well I entered into O'Malley's Sai...

I thought I'd take a walk today It's a mistake I sometimes make My kids lay asleep in bed My wife lay wide-awake Kissed her softly on the brow Tried not to make...

Oh happy day, oh happy day When Jesus washed, oh when He washed When my Jesus washed, He washed my sins away Oh happy day He taught me how to walk, fight and p...

Here I sleep the morning through 'Til the wail of the call to prayer awakes me And there ain't nothing at all to do but rise and follow The day wherever it take...

From english folk songs from the southern appalachians, sharp collected from mary wilson and mrs townley, kentucky, 1917 Once there was a little tailor boy Abo...

I went out walking the other day The wind hung wet around my neck My head it rung with screams and groans From the night I spent amongst her bones I passed besi...

From the Current '93 album All the Pretty Horsies The rivers of Babylon flow, and fall, and carry AwayJesus is alone on earth, not merely with no One to feel an...

Erik wrote: "The theme is similar to the Nick's song New Morning Note also that the line 'There'll be no sadness, no sorrow' also is in New Morning Finally, the...

People just ain't no good I think that's welll understood You can see it everywhere you look People just ain't no good We were married under cherry trees Under...

Plain gold ring on her finger she wore It was where everyone could see It belonged to someone, but not me On her hand she wore a plain gold ring Plain gold rin...

They're working us like dogs around here 'Cause pleasure is the boss And I'm the happiest slave alive round here 'Cause pleasure is the boss And nothing is safe...

I've been loving you a long time Down all the years, down all the days And I've cried for all your troubles Smiled at your funny little ways We watched our fri...

Take a litle walk to the edge of town Go across the tracks Where the viaduct looms, Like a bird of doom As it shifts and cracks Where secrets lie in the border ...

Whoooahh! Bite! Whoooah! Bite! Release the bats! Release the bats! Don't tell me that it doesn't hurt A hundred fluttering in your skirt Don't tell me that it d...

The street is very wide And i can't see across it My house isn't clear to me The cars move in between Chorus and i say: question When is a door not a door??? A...

When I get home, I'm gunna clean up my house When I get home, I'm gunna kick out that mouse When I get home, I'm gunna put things in order But right now, right ...

Please forgive me If I appear unkind But any fool can tell you It's all in your mind Down in the meadow The old lion stirs Puts his hand 'cross his mouth He ha...

Let me say this to you I'll be steadfast and true And my love will never falter The sea would crash about us The waves would lash about us I'll be your Rock of...

Just running scared, each place we go So afraid, that he might show Yeah, running scared, what would I do If he came back and wanted you? Just running scared, ...

Rye whiskey, rye whiskey, rye whiskey I cry, If I don't git rye whiskey I think I will die If you was a hornet way up in a tree, I'd faint from pure pleasure if...

[As sung by Mick Harvey; Nick's live versions deviate from this] Credits: Humphreys/Lovett/Richards/Lynch/Anderson/LPA I look at you in your sad dark eyes And ...

Down the road I look and there runs Mary Hair of gold and lips like cherries We go down to the river where the willows weep Take a naked root for a lovers seat ...

I climbed the hill, lay in the grass A little dark-eyed girl drifted past She said all the best is come, it could not last And the worst, it has come true Her ...

Born of the river, Born of it's ever-changing, never-changing murky water Oh riverboat just rollin' along through the great great greasy city Huck standing like...

O say goodbye to the little girl tree O you know that I must say goodbye To the little girl tree This wall I built around you Is made out of stone-lies O little...

Well, I lived with one Well, I lived with one, I lived with two, I even lived with a third I wanna tell you about number one He was a miserable shitwringing tur...

This is a dead letter tale If I could make this print talk You made a deep mark/deep mark on me And only saints say such things as those So I slid under the flo...

Once she lay open like a road Carbed apart the madness that I stumbled from But she fell away She fell away Shed me like a skin She fell away Left me holding ev...

She passed by my window Her eyes were all aglow And bent to pick her glove she'd dropped From the bright and brittle snow Nature had spoken it in the Spring Wi...

There is woman-pie in here Mr evangalist says she's hit The best cook you ever had Ya can't blame the good-woman now, dad And ya looked him up for 20 years Now ...

You were planning to stay in, you had it carefully planned Your coat was hanging in the hall, your hat was in your hand You walked over to your woman, your pale...

I've been contemplating suicide, But it really doesn't suit my style, So i think i'll just act bored instead Who can take (alt: and contain) the blood i would'v...

I stuck a six inch gold blade inside the head of a girl She: lying through her teeth Him: lying on his back Hands of this one,hands off she cried Grinning at me...

(Newbury, Folger) Yesterday the sun was shining but you're finding the sun it Don't shine all the time A winter day suddenly came your way And you ran into you...

Darling, That morning you chose to go (?) my boots and clothes You're diggin' my cards, stolen my cash, Even my 500 dolars souit (?) And I just laid there watch...

Something's gotten hold of my heart Keeping my soul and my senses apart Something's gotten into my life Cutting it's way through my dreams like a knife Turning ...

Have mercy on me, sir Allow me to impose on you I have no place to stay And my bones are cold right through I will tell you a story Of a man and his family And ...

Have you heard how Sonny's burning Like some bright erotic star? And He lights up the proceedings And raises the temperature Flame on! Flame on! Now I've seen ...

Sorrow's child sits by the river Sorrow's child hears not the water Sorrow's child sits by the river Sorrow's child hears not the water And just when it seems a...

Through the woods, and frosted moors Past the snow-caked hedgerows I Bed down upon the drifting snow Sleep beneath the melting sky I whisper all your names I kn...

Three traditional versions of the song from Murder Ballads Nick's version is also available Further details (and the actual book Nick edited from) are also avai...

The cops are hanging around the house The cars outside look like they've got the blues The moon don't know if it's day or night Everybody's creeping around with...

Hey hey I am the stow-a-way Hey hey I am the stow-a-way My girl turned blue as an iceberg do And me I'm totally shipwrecked over her Baby baby don't blow away ...

All the towers of ivory are crumbling And the swallows have sharpened their beaks This is the time of our great undoing This is the time that I'll come running ...

Stranger than kindness Bottled light from hotels Spilling everything Wet hand from the volcano Sobers your skin Stranger than Kindness You caress yourself And ...

Sugar Sugar Sugar That man is bad The road he drives you down O sugar it's a drag That road it twists That road is crossed Its down that road A lot of little g...

Sunday's got a slave Monday's got one too Sunday's got a slave Monday's got one too Our sufferings are countless Our pleasures are motley few Spend all day digg...

Through the windswept coastal trees Where the dead come rising from the sea With a teddy-bear clamped between her knees She says, where can my loverman be? Well...

Quixanne, ah'm in it's grip Quixanne, ah'm in it's grip Sinken in the mud Patron-saint of the Bog They cum with boots of blud Wit pitchfawk and with clu Chantin...

Come over here, babe It ain't that bad I don't claim to understand The troubles that you've had But the dogs you say they fed you to Lay their muzzles in your l...

Jazz Fire eating drag-queens dressed as society whores Crazy two timing bitches running round Ghetto blasting blasters, blasting magnificently Blossoms falling ...

There was a thick set man with frog eyes Who was standing by the door And a little bald man with wing-nut ears Was waiting in the car Well Robert Moore passed t...

Nick performed this for the Italian film Mojo, along with Gallon Drunk and it is available on a CD called Soho Now it begins, now that you're gone Needles and ...

(T Springfield, F Farian) Say goodbye, my one true lover And we'll steal a lover's song How it breaks my heart to leave you Now the carnival has gone Oh my lo...

And no-one saw the carny go And the weeks flew by Until they moved on the show Leaving his caravan behind It was parked out on the south east ridge And as the c...

I live in a town called Millhaven And it's small and it's mean and it's cold But if you come around just as the sun goes down You can watch the whole town turn ...

Inanimational items elude I, and In-an-emotional-motion I swallow my Motive of quicker location is slammed My dim chance of skipping this thick world is thin Th...

I, cigarette fingers Puff and poke Puff and poking the smoke Touches the ground You, your lungs and your wrists They throb like trains Choo choo choo It's a pr...

One more land gone One more land gone One more land One more land gone One more land gone One more land is gone The Good Hun rode into the fields He is Attila...

One more man gone One more man gone One more man is gone The good son walks into the field He is a tiller, he has a tiller's hands But down in his heart now He...

I set out on monday The night was cold and vast And my brother slept And though I left quite quietly My father raged and raged And my mother wept Now, my life...

They found Mary Bellows cuffed to the bed With a rag in her mouth and a bullet in her head O poor Mary Bellows She'd grown up hungry, she'd grown up poor She le...

It was the dirty end of winter Along the loom of the land When I walked with sweet Sally Hand upon hand And the wind it bit bitter For a boy of no means With n...

Orpheus sat gloomy in his garden shed Wondering what to do With a lump of wood, a piece of wire And a little pot of glue O Mamma O Mamma He sawed at the wood w...

It began when they come took me from my home And put me in Death Row, Of which I am nearly wholly innocent, you know And I'll say it again Iamnotafraidtodie I ...

The moon is in the gutter And the stars wash down the sink I am the king of the blues I scape the clay off my shoes And wade down the gutter and the moon The m...

Come sail your ships around me And burn your bridges down We make a little history, baby Every time you come around Come loose your dogs upon me And let your h...

(Cash, Daniels) As I walk these narrow streets Where a million passin feet have trod before me With my guitar in my hand Suddenly I realize nobody knows me Wh...

Guitar thug blew into town His eyes like wheels spinnin' round Jerkin-off at every sound Layin' all his crosses down O yeah He got Six Strings The Six Strings t...

I married my wife on the day of the eclipse Our friends awarded her courage with gifts Now as the nights grow longer and the season shifts I look to my sorrowfu...

Our time is done my love We've laid it all to waste One thousand moonlit kisses Can't sweeten this bitter taste My desire for you is endless And I'll love you '...