The Hills of Roane County

In the beautiful hills in the midst of Roane Country

It's there that I labored my whole life away

It's there that my heart is a-turnin' most ever

It's there the first steps of misfortune I made

It's about thirty years when I courted and married

Miss Armanda Gilbert to be my fair wife

For some unknown reason her brother Tom stabbed me

And not two months later, I'd taken Tom's life

It's captured and tried in a village of Kingsport

Not a soul in that village could say a kind word

When a jury come in with the verdict next morning

"A lifetime in prison" are the words that I heard

Well my Mama come down to see me at the station

My sweet sister Donna sat there by her side

They turned for to go, but I was chained to the platform

They said, "Willie, God bless you, God bless you, goodbye"

In the scorching hot sands of a foundry, I'm toiling

Just a-toilin' and sweatin' my poor life away

When I die, bury me on the banks of old Cumberland

In the beautiful green hills of east Tennessee

In the beautiful hills in the midst of Roane Country

It's there that I labored my whole life away

It's there that my heart is a-turnin' most ever

It's there the first steps of misfortune I made