Oh My Darling, Clementine" is a popular American Western Folk ballad that is most often attributed to performers like Percy Montrose and Barker Bradford. Its origins however, lie in an 1863 tune by H.S. Thompson called "Down By the River Liv'd a Maiden." Like "Clementine," the song is a mock-serious ode to the narrator's deceased lover, who drowned after she stubbed her toe and fell in the river. Thompson used some pretty clever imagery to conjure an image of our heroine: