On an old Josh White LP I have his version of Frankie and Johnny, and there's one reference that I don't understand.
The verse (after she's shot him) goes like this:
Frankie went down on Broadway As far as she could see. All she could hear was a two-string bow Playing "Nearer, Oh my God, To thee" All over town Ohhhh, Johnny's dead!
What, pray tell, would "a two-string bow" be? Anybody?