As I walked down that old dark town
In the town where I was born
I heard the saddest lonesome moan
I ever heard before

My hair it trembled at the roots
Cold chills run down my spine
As I drew near that jail house
I heard this deathly cry:

O, don't kill my baby and my son
O , don't kill my baby and my son
You can stretch my neck on that old river bridge
But don't kill my baby and my son

Now, I've heard the cries of a panther
Now, I've heard the coyotes yell
But that long, lonesome cry shook the whole wide world
And it come from the cell of the jail

Yes, I’ve heard the screech owls screeching
And the hoot owls that hoot in the night
But the graveyard itself is happy compared
To the voice in that jailhouse that night

Then I saw a picture on a postcard
It showed the Canadian River Bridge
Three bodies hanging to swing in the wind
A mother and two sons they'd lynched