The Price Of Her Heart

I knew she lived somewhere down Waterside way,
We rode the same bus into town every day.
When something inside me could no longer wait,
Took my courage in both hands and asked for a date.
We courted, we married, had kids and they grew,
And we were as happy as any we knew.
Logs on the fire and walks in the rain,
A home by the river and a place down in Spain.

There was ice on the road and the traffic was slow,
So I called her to say I'd be late getting home;
The phone just kept ringing, she wasn't there,
The house dark and empty, a note on the stair
Said she'd gone with a traveller named Davy McCann,
He'd an old Transit diesel and a new caravan.
He played on the fiddle, he played on the bones,
He had one concrete mixer and three mobile phones.

She cost me in sorrow, she cost me in pain,
But if I met her tomorrow I'd do just the same;
The price of her heart was my own in exchange,
But a life spent without her was out of my range.

She cost me in sorrow, she cost me in pain...

I found them in a lay-by as the snow-clouds rolled in,
I said "Have you forsaken your home and your kin?
And have you forsaken your husband and all?"
She drew off her glove as the snow began to fall.

She cost me in sorrow, she cost me in pain...

I think I once saw her, she looked much the same
But her hair was more wild, her eyes were more tame;
I wanted to ask her just why she had gone,
But the lights went to green and we had to move on.

She cost me in sorrow, she cost me in pain...

A different take on Child Ballad #200, in which a wife leaves her husband and goes off with Gypsy Davy. This one's from the husband's perspective.

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