Carter Family, The - Single Girl, Married Girl Lyrics

Thanks - this is history, and it holds up 90 years later.

What a great song and performance. From 92 years ago!!!

Love early America. Love the Founders. Love the roots. I despise post-modernism. We don't have to apologize for the greatness of our forebears. What they had to do to survive, is what they had to do. And we, or at least I, even if I'm by myself honor their memory. I have ancestors who fought in both sides of the civil war, and in a way I'm proud on both accounts. Its a complex thing...duality.

I met Maybelle Carter on Johnny Cash's tour bus shortly before she died. I have never encountered another presence as powerful, except maybe for Roebuck Staples - and the respect that Johnny had for her was special

How wonderful that you got to meet her! I would've loved it! I love Maybelle and think she's amazing. What was she like?

Was watching Obvious Child, this came on, I paused it to tell the other person in the room, OH MY GOD, this is the Carter Family, it stuck in my head 18 months after watching the documentary. Genius

Make it, make it ñyeeeee ñehñe make it make it dont fake it motherfuckeeeers!!!

Early days of trying to dismantle family.. Go to the store amd buy what you please vs rocking your baby (and CRIES?) I was never happier in my life than when I was rocking my baby!

how you doing now?

What a groove !

Learned of this from Harry Smith's "Anthology of American Folk Music"

Came here after watching “Winding Stream” on Netflix. Great documentary.

Am I the first here from Godless on netflix?

yee Haa

Dam, they got another one. Glad more people are finding this music. The Carter Family, Flatt and Scrugs, Hank Williams sir, Stanley Brothers, Lead Belly, Arvil Gearhart, and many more good ones.

@Rason Jason yeeee

my too yo también

1927 wooowww

TRASH HUMPERS!!!

Make it, don't fake it!!!

Harmony Korine, 53jaybop.

@Chris Banuelos thank u brothers

Wish I were a time traveler...know where I'd be now.

All their music sounds like loneliness and a horse driven plow.

A really nice song. Touching and true for all times.

beautiful

No One will ever top this, the emotion, the sound

Have heard several versions of this from a 1960 Stanley Brothers up to a recent Haden Triplets version. Have to agree, this 1927 Carter Family recording towers far above all of them!

It's so goddamn good... Pmf

Perfection

Take a lesson, ladies . . .

Nosmo King don’t get married...?

Revolutionary

Obvious Child filminden geldim :)) dikkat çekici hoş bir şarkı .

Single girl, single girl, she's going dressed fine
Oh, she's going dressed fine
Married girl, married girl, she wears just any kind
Oh, she wears just any kind

Single girl, single girl, she goes to the store and buys
Oh, she goes to the store and buys
Married girl, married girl, she rocks the cradle and cries
Oh, she rocks the cradle and cries

Single girl, single girl, she's going where she please
Oh, she's going where she please
Married girl, married girl, baby on her knees
Oh, baby on her knees

she says "married girl wear just ( anythang)"

This song is one of the all time top 10 in my book. The plaintive lyrics with the rich guitar licks defines classic American roots music. Or original rock and roll, if you will.

Agree. This song was ahead of its time. I always thought it was kind of resentfull and a bit angry. Supposedly after recording their first session they went home and AP went to work on his garden. He wasn't in on this song because he went to get a tire just so they could make it home. Maybelle almost didn't bring her guitar because she didn't think she would need it...thank God she brought it. I still can't play the Carter scratch but I enjoy listening to her do it.

The first feminist song?

Written by who? AP Carter was the arranger, collecting folk songs from surrounding towns in W VA. Sounds more like mothers' traditional warning to daughters.

Many who collected folk songs in those days put their own names on them, including the Lomaxes. Certainly versions of this song are found in earlier collections, including that of Cecil Sharp made in the general region of the Carters, a generation earlier. And certainly there are earlier songs about young mothers or wives lamenting their lot.

An interesting example of an old-world folk song with a feminist theme is "Maid on the Shore." Martin Carthy's excellent version is on youtube, as are many others.

+wbeaty AP Carter was from Virginia(NOT WVA), the southwest area in the Clinch Mountains that range from Virginia down into Tennessee's northeast section. Towns there are Gate City VA, Bristol VA and Kingsport, Johnson CIty and Bristol TN.

I think wbeaty meant western Virginia, when he wrote W VA. Of course AP would have gone up to WVA on collecting trips, as well as TN, NC, and KY. He was some sort of travelling salesman, I seem to recall. Those long trips are what led to him and Sara breaking up.

😂 Did you listen to lyrics at all?

As one commenter noted below, this is "Rock & Roll". In 1927! As I wander thru the incredible number of YT clips on the original Carter Family I am struck by how modern sounding the Carter's are in the 1920's and 30's. I hear the origins of modern rock, rock-a-billy, folk, country, pop, blues and more across the spectrum of Carter Family recordings. These recordings are stunning and amazing in their beauty, quality, purity, with such authenticity that it takes you breath away. The Carter sound is unique and easily crosses all musical genres. Up to this day, I'm not aware of any other performers who can get such energy, drive and beauty from only two instruments and two or three voices. At times the beauty of Maybelle's guitar and Sara's autoharp together brings tears.

Couldn't have put it better myself, covers all the great Carter family magic. Loved them for a very long time.

The Carter family goes hard af

So Simply Beautiful, it makes me tear up.

You can really hear Maybelle's fine licks on guitar in this, and Sara's confident voice, great lyrics.

Single girl, single girl, she's going dressed fine
Oh, she's going dressed fine
Married girl, married girl, she wears just any kind
Oh, she wears just any kind


Single girl, single girl, she goes to the store and buys
Oh, she goes to the store and buys
Married girl, married girl, she rocks the cradle and cries
Oh, she rocks the cradle and cries



Single girl, single girl, she's going where she please
Oh, she's going where she please
Married girl, married girl, baby on her knees
Oh, baby on her knees

@Rusty Walker I just love this song. The lyrics are so simple and yet utterly profound. And the guitar work is delicious, and Sara's voice is a national treasure.

As Drew F and Joy T have said, this is rock n roll and Sara's voice is a national treasure. And how I love their music and this song. Thanks for posting. 

This was a B side and their first hit. Sara said it just caught a wave.

Supposedly Sara didn't want to even sing it. Glad she did.

I love it when I find a Carter Family 78 of 1927-32.  They are so awesome.  So far I've found a dozen and each of them had at least one side I liked if not both.  This was definitely one.  I could never part with it.

The married girl "wears just any kind."

Simply beautiful. What does the married girl wear? It sounds like 'skinny tie' :)

clawpuss2?  I believe the end of that line  is  "she'll wear just any type...."???  not a certainty but that's what it seems to me to be...

I'm pretty sure that the lyric is "she wears most any kind".

+clawpuss2 "just any kind" i think

Mos def "any kind"...just saw the Avett Bros. cover it in Little Rock...

Wears just anythang. South baby

haha my history teacher played this in class

That's awesome. What State was that in?

Your teacher has good taste

This is rock and roll

I love this song. Sara's beautiful voice is a national treasure.

Great old-time song!

Beautiful music, thanks for posting.