Subject: Lyr Add: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (Leighton Bros&Shields
From:
Jim Dixon
Date: 02 Aug 19 - 01:38 PM
From the sheet music at the University of Illinois at Chicago:
(Besides having an extra verse, this throws some light on what Charlie Poole actually sang. It turns out he followed the original lyrics a lot more closely than anyone who tried to learn the song from him.
FRANKIE AND JOHNNY, or “You’ll Miss Me in the Days to Come”
Words and music by Leighton Bros. & Ren Shields, ©1912.
1. Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts; they had a quarrel one day.
Johnny he vowed he would leave her; said he was goin’ away.
He’s never comin' home; he’s goin' away to roam.
Frankie she begged and she pleaded, cried: “Oh, Johnny, please stay.”
She says: “My honey, I have done you wrong, but please don't go away.”
Then Johnny sighed and to his Frankie cried—
CHORUS*: “Oh, I'm a-goin' away; I'm a-goin' to stay; I’m never comin’ home.
You’re goin’ to miss me, hon’, in the days to come.
When the winter winds begin to blow, the ground is covered up with snow,
You’ll think of me, and you will wish to be, back with your lovin’ man.
You’re goin’ to miss me, hon’, in the days, days, days to come.”
2. Frankie says, “Listen now, Johnny: to prove my love is true,
Every dollar I can save, dear, I’m goin’ to give to you.
So I think now, dear, that ought to keep you here.”
Johnny says: “Listen, now, Frankie: don’t want to tell you no lie.
I’ve lost my heart to another queen; her name is Nellie Bly.”
Then Frankie groaned as her Johnny moaned—CHORUS
3. Frankie then said to her johnny: "Say, man, your hour has come."
From underneath her silk kimona she drew a forty-four gun.
Oh, it was a bear; ‘twas quite a large affair.
Johnny he dashed down the stairway, cryin’: “Oh, Frankie, don't shoot.”
Frankie took aim with her forty-four five times with a rooty-toot-toot.
As Johnny fell, then miss Frankie yelled—CHORUS
4. “Send for your rubber-tired hearses; go get your rubber-tired hacks.
Take lovin’ Johnny to the graveyard; I shot him in the back
With my great big gun, just as he went to run.
Send for a thousand policemen detectives right away.
Lock me way down in the dungeon cell and throw the keys away.
My Johnny's dead, just because he said—CHORUS
- - -
* In the third chorus, the pronouns are reversed, because Frankie is speaking:
I = you or thee (for the rhyme), You = I or me, etc.
The Internet Archive has a 1921 recording by the Paul Biese Trio with Frank Crumit, which gives an idea of what the song originally sounded like.
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