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07 Dec 97 - 11:29 PM (#17267) Subject: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: Madlopez@pacbell.net I'm not sure if I'm crying out for lyric help the right way. This internet stuff is all new to me, but I know there are older and nastier lyrics to "Frankie and Johnnie"--I heard them. They're great, but I can't find them. Thanks if you can help. Take care, even if you can't. Ta ta. |
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08 Dec 97 - 12:46 AM (#17268) Subject: Lyr Add: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (Ed Cray) From: Earl You've come to the right place. There are many versions of this great American song. "The Erotic Muse" by Ed Cray lists four raunchy versions, here's the first:
Frankie and Johnny were lovers;
Frankie was a good girl
Frankie workied in a crib-joint
Frankie was a fucky hussy,
Frankie, she knowed her business
Frankie went down to Fourth Street
"I couldn't tell you no story.
Frankie ran back to her crib-joint
Frankie put on her kimono;
She ran along Fish Alley
Frankie went to the front door.
Frankie drew back her kimono,
"Roll me over Frankie
Frankie ran back to her crib-joint
Three little pieces of crepe
"Bring out your rubber tired buggy.
They brought a rubber-tired buggy
Frankie went out to the graveyard
Frankie stood up in the courtroom
The judge said "Stand up Frankie,
The last time I saw Frankie
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08 Dec 97 - 12:37 PM (#17286) Subject: RE: older/raunchier From: dick greenhaus Only thing I can add to that is:
They brought a rubber-tired buggy |
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10 Feb 03 - 08:26 PM (#887212) Subject: Lyr Add: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (Vance Randolph) From: GUEST,Q Lyr. Add: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (Gordon MS) Frankie and Johnny were lovers, So everybody knew, She was his lovin' sweetheart- My God, how that gal could screw. He was her man, and she treated him square. Frankie took care of her Johnny, She gave him a gold watch and chain, She staked his crap games in Frisco And fed him until luck came again. For he was her man, and she loved him true. Johnny chased the other women, Took to chasin' Alice Fry, While Frankie sat and waited, Not thinkin' her Johnny'd lie. For he was her man, and she tho't he was square. One day in Doc Shehan's Alley, A friend to Frankie said, Your Johnny-boy's a gash-hound, Sportin' on a whore house bed. He is your man, but he's doin' you wrong. Frankie went down to the whore house, She rang that whore house bell,- Stand aside you pimps and whores, Or I'll blow you all to hell. He is my man and he's doin' me wrong. Frankie looked over the transom, Goddam your soul, I'll shoot! And she pulled her forty-five- The Colt went rooty-toot-toot! For he was her man, an he was doin' her wrong. She shot him once, she shot him twice, Hit the middle of his big black ass; The whores and pimps huddled there, Waitin' for his soul to pass. For he was her man, and he was doin' her wrong. Johnny got shot in the ass hole, He saw his life-blood flow,- Lord a'mighty, sweetheart gal, An ass full of lead hurts so. But I was your man, and I done you wrong. Turn me over easy, Oh, Lord! Turn me over slow, oh! Lord God a'mighty, boys, It hurts to turn me, oh! I was her man, and I done her wrong. And Johnny said to the pimps and whores Who gathered 'round his side, I double-crossed my lovin' gal- Then wiggled his ass and died. He was her man, but he done her wrong. Silver-handled, plush-lined casket, A rubber-tired hack, Takin' Johnny to the graveyard, And bringin' nothin' back. For he was her man, and he done her wrong. Vance Randolph, 1992, "Roll Me In Your Arms, "'Unprintable' Ozark Folksongs and Folklore," vol. 1, no. 153, pp. 477-484, Univ. Arkansas Press. MS apparently supplied from Cornell Univ., in 1931, "by the hobo-song specialist, Godfrey Owen, who said he heard it on a ranch near Boise, ID, between 1912-1912." |
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10 Feb 03 - 08:34 PM (#887222) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: Charley Noble And Vance Randolph has several other versions as well and excellent discussion by editor G. Legman. Charley Noble |
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10 Feb 03 - 08:36 PM (#887225) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: GUEST,Q As noted in a previous thread, the case dates from 1899, when Frankie Baker shot Allen Britt (St. Louis Post-Dispatch). He died four days after the shooting. Frankie claimed self-defense and was aquitted. In 1939, she sued Republic Pictures, producers of "Frankie and Johnny," for invasion of privacy and defamation of character. The suit was dismissed in 1942. Details from Randolph, op. cit., previous posting. |
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10 Feb 03 - 09:00 PM (#887249) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: GUEST,Q In addition to the songs, the comments by Randolph are worth the price of admission (about $90 at present). In his discussion of Frankie and Johnny, Randolph says, "In 1960, I supplied Alan Lomax with the oldest and best text of "Frankie and Albert" ever collected (Omaha, Nebraska, 1908), from a Negro pianist and guitarist, Palmer Jones, whose main dates of activity were in Birmingham, Alabama, about 1904. Lomax printed this in his Folk Songs of North America (1960)... under the abbreviated title -Frankie- to get rid of the unfashionable Albert- with over thirty editorial improvements, including changing the .41 gun to a .44; and also expurgating mild profanity, such as "you faithless son of a bitch," into long dashes, with an extra stanza added at the end from some other, unknown source, and with music not connected or collected with the text. Lomax also amusingly referred to the source of the original hand-written manuscript I supplied him as 'my present informant, Palmer Jones,' although Jones had been dead since 1928, when I was eleven years old and Lomax not much older." |
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11 Feb 03 - 01:47 PM (#887836) Subject: Lyr Add: ANNIE AND JOHNNY (version of FRANKIE &... From: GUEST,Q Legman, rather than Randolph, should be credited with the comments in my post of 10 Feb 03, 9:00 pm. Here is another version: Lyr. Add: ANNIE AND JOHNNY Annie went down to the corner, To get a bottle of beer, She said to the dammed old bartender, Has my ever-loving Johnny been here? He is my man, but I think he's doing me wrong. I ain't going to tell you no stories, I ain't going to tell you no lies, Johnny was seting under the counter Finger-fucking Nellie Blythe. He was her man, but he was doing her wrong. Annie looked over the counter, And seen to her alarm, Johnny wasn't using his finger, He was using his whole damn arm. He was her man, but he was doing her wrong. Annie stepped away from the counter, And drew both her forty-fours, She shot once, twice, and three times, She had Johnny on the floor. He was her man, but he had done her wrong. First shot Johnny staggered, Second shot Johnny fell, Third shot hit Johnny in the left nut And blew it all to hell. He was her man, but he had done her wrong. Collected from a Bentonville, Arkansas student by Mary Celeste Parler (later Randolph's wife) in ca. 1957. From Vance Randolph, ed. G. Legman, 1992, "Roll Me in Your Arms, 'Unprintable' Ozark Folksongs and Folklore," vol. 1, p. 481. No indication of where the student got this version (was it his?). In court, Frankie testified that she fired only once, in self-defense. This one reads like an "improved" text to me. Legman says all the texts agree that she shot three times. It would be interesting to get the testimony from the trial for a more accurate (?) story of the event. |
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11 Feb 03 - 03:41 PM (#887934) Subject: Lyr Add: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (ALBERT) From: GUEST,Q Lyr. Add: FRANKIE AND JOHNNY (ALBERT) Frankie was a good girl Ev'ry body knows, She paid a half a hundred, For Albert a suit of clothes, He is my man, but he won't come home. Way down in some dark alley I heard a bulldog bark, I believe to my soul my honey Is lost out in the dark, He is my man, but he won't come home. Frankie went to the bartender, Called for a bottle of beer, Ask the bartender my loving Albert, Has he been here? He is my man, but he won't come home. Bartender said to Frankie I can't tell you a lie, He left here about an hour ago With a girl called Alice Bly, He is your man, but he's doing you wrong. Frankie went up Fourth Street, Come back down on Main, Looking up on the second floor Saw Albert in another girl's arms Saying he's my man, but he's doing me wrong. Frankie says to Albert, Baby, don't you run! If you don't come to the one you love I'll shoot you with your own gun, You are my man, but you're doing me wrong. Frankie she shot Albert, He fell upon the floor, Says turn me over easy, And turn me over slow, I'm your man, but you shot me down. Early the next morning Just about half past four Eighteen inches of black crape sic) Was hanging on Frankie's door, Saying he was my man, but he wouldn't come home. Frankie went over to Mis' Moodie's, Fell upon her knees, Says forgive me, Mis' Moodie, Forgive me, oh do please. How can I, when he's my only son? Frankie went down to the graveyard, Police by her side, When she saw the one she loved She hollered and she cried, He was my man, but he wouldn't come home. Police say to Frankie No use to holler and cry, When you shot the one you loved You meant for him to die, He's your man, but he's dead and gone. Rubber-tired buggy, Silver-mounted hack, Took Albert to the graveyard But couldn't bring him back, He was my man, but he wouldn't come home. From Mrs. John F. Smith, Elkins, Arkansas, 1930 ("version was known to her great-grandmother"). Legman says, "this excellent old text, one of the only few known of the original version of the song," was published in Randolph, "Ozark Folksongs," vol. 2, pp. 125-136 No. 159A, with music (text copied from there). Also published in "Ozark Life", July 1930. In "Roll Me in Your Arms," Legman says that "the original song, dating from 1899 to about 1912, can be identified by these three features, if not four: A) The text begins 'Frankie was a good woman (girl),' B) Her pimp's name is Albert, not Johnny, C) The gun she shoots him with ...is a Colt .41...." D),In two of the three best three original texts recovered, there is the occult text that ....she hears her '(pet) bulldog bark.'" "....the bulldog unquestionably representing his lost soul." In 1911, a vaudeville team, the Leighton Brothers rewrote the existing song ..." changing the "murdered pimp's name from Albert (actually Allen Britt) to Johnny, for the first time." The song was copyrighted in 1912, crediting the words to the Leightons and the music to Ren Shields, and became a national hit. These later texts differ in that the first verse is omitted, the pimp's name is Johnny, the gun is a .44 and always mentioned, and there is no mention of the bulldog barking in the dark alley (from Legman, op. cit.). |
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11 Feb 03 - 04:55 PM (#887973) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: Charley Noble Guest Q- You're doing great! I'm beginning to feel guilty about not typing some of this up myself. It is nice, though, to complete the story in a thread like this. Cheerily, Charley Noble |
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11 Feb 03 - 06:15 PM (#888038) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: GUEST,Q Any help appreciated. Some of our old, basic classics are poorly treated in Mudcat, with a changed and reduced version in the DT by some popular group that changes the whole emphasis of the original. On the other hand, many of the classics from the British Isles are there in abundance - which is great. |
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24 Jan 05 - 03:42 PM (#1387368) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: GUEST,beermaker@cinci.rr.com Anybody have or know where I can find the lyrics from the New Frankie and Johnny (if 60's in considered new!) by the Serendipity singers? I can find a million versions of the standard text. Dave |
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24 Jan 05 - 04:09 PM (#1387396) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: Jim Dixon Well, I'd start by looking at the links near the top of this thread, under "Related Threads". |
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24 Jan 05 - 04:59 PM (#1387454) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: GUEST,Art Thieme That newer version of the tale/song was by Bob Gibson and Shel Silverstein. That's where the Serendipity people got it---from Bob's singing with his big 12-string. Art |
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27 Jan 05 - 11:31 AM (#1390173) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: GUEST,dp I found the lyrics at www.bluegrassmessengers.com/master/frankie10.html. |
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27 Jan 05 - 12:04 PM (#1390209) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: John MacKenzie Johnny Cash did a great version. Frankie and Johnny were lovers, true as the blue blue sky Frankie was a long legged guitar picker with a wicked wanderin' eye He was her man; nearly all of the time. Etc. Giok |
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27 Jan 05 - 12:08 PM (#1390218) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: Lighter Robert W. Gordon had collected well over 100 versions by 1927, few of them especially "raunchy." But the degree of variation is still amazing. |
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27 Jan 05 - 01:27 PM (#1390305) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: PoppaGator Back on 11 Feb 03, Q gave us a version including this verse: Way down in some dark alley I heard a bulldog bark, I believe to my soul my honey Is lost out in the dark, He is my man, but he won't come home. I was reminded of the opening lyrics to "Stagger Lee" as recorded in the 50s by Lloyd Price (I was standing/On the corner/When I heard that bulldog bark..."), and immediately started to wonder if there is some symbolism or traditional meaning to the bulldog's bark. Any ideas? |
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28 Jan 05 - 10:15 AM (#1391255) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: GUEST,mick Earl's version mentions Frankie spending "a hundred dollars on a suit a suit of clothes" for Jonny . Stagolee spent the same amount for his suit according to Woody Guthrie: "Stagolee was a bad man ,everybody knows/ spent a hundred dollars on just one suit of clothes." |
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03 Feb 07 - 12:35 PM (#1956632) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: GUEST,loml try the 50's version by a skiffle singer named Lonnie Donigan from Britan |
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03 Feb 07 - 10:43 PM (#1957090) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: Liz the Squeak I sing this every time I pass one of the chain of pseudo 'New York Italian Family restaurants that we have here in the UK. They tend to be near cinema complexes and any Hollywood Bowling alley. The name of the restaurants means that the song comes out slightly differently. Altogether now... Frankie and Benny were lovers.... LTS |
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06 Feb 07 - 03:49 PM (#1959449) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: GUEST My Dad sings this to us still as we sit around the campfire during the summer. He used to play it on the guitar. Does anyone know the chords for this song? |
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06 Feb 07 - 04:42 PM (#1959520) Subject: RE: older/raunchier "Frankie and Johnny" lyrics From: dick greenhaus re "bulldog bark" Bulldogs (the canine kind) don't bark. There was a popular short barrelled revolver style called a "bulldog". They did bark. |
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25 May 07 - 01:26 PM (#2060823) Subject: Lyr Add: FRANKIE'S MAN JOHNNY (Johnny Cash) From: GUEST The Cash version is pretty humorous. FRANKIE'S MAN JOHNNY Words by Johnny Cash; music traditional. As recorded by Johnny Cash on "The Fabulous Johnny Cash" (1958)
Well, now, Frankie and Johnny were sweethearts; they were true as a blue, blue sky.
Well, Johnny, he packed up to leave her, but he promised he'd be back.
Well, Frankie curled up on the sofa, thinkin' about her man.
Then in the front door walked a redhead; Johnny saw right away.
He sang ev'ry song to the redhead; she smiled back at him.
Then the redhead jumped up and slapped him; she slapped him a time or two.
Well, the moral of this story is be good but carry a stick. |
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19 Dec 08 - 05:46 AM (#2519627) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: GUEST,Paul Slade Does anyone know of a recording which uses any version of the raunchy lyrics above? |
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19 Dec 08 - 01:14 PM (#2519973) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: PoppaGator This is the first time I've looked back into this thread since asking my question about the bulldog's bark. Thanks for the answer, Dick! Question: 27 Jan 05 Answer: 06 Feb 07 Questioner gets the answer: 19 Dec 08 Ain't Mudcat something?!? |
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19 Dec 08 - 07:42 PM (#2520248) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: Gurney The Royal Navy variant 'Stripey and Blondie' adds a whole spectrum of new slants, hints of homosexuality, fantasy, mass murder, women imprisoned in naval prisons, attempts to shoot down ghosts, things like that. Cyril Tawney sang it, but I'm unsure if he recorded it. C'm'ere and I'll tell you a story, It's all about Malta, you know. It's all about a Valletta-bound jane, and a feller called Stripey Joe. He was her man. He was doing her wrong. |
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19 Dec 08 - 07:59 PM (#2520259) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: Joe_F Gurney: It's in Tawney's collection _Grey Funnel Lines_. More than a hint of homosexuality; it's a young sailor he's betraying her with. And no rooty-toot-toot for her; she steals a ship's gun and blows up the whole bar. My favorite stanza in F&J is, I suppose, mildly profane: First time she shot him, he staggered. Next time she shot him, he fell. Last time she shot her lover, There was a new man's face in Hell. He was her man, etc. I intend to use that line if certain people predecease me. |
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15 Oct 18 - 08:05 PM (#3956820) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: GUEST,Joseph Scott "[...] Randolph says, 'In 1960, I supplied Alan Lomax with the oldest and best text of "Frankie and Albert" ever collected (Omaha, Nebraska, 1908), from a Negro pianist and guitarist, Palmer Jones, whose main dates of activity were in Birmingham, Alabama, about 1904. Lomax printed this in his Folk Songs of North America (1960)[...] with over thirty editorial [changes]...." Palmer Jones was born in Alabama in about 1887 and e.g. cowrote the blues tune "Going South," copyright 1914. I don't know how we reconcile Randolph's comments with what Gershon Legman wrote in 1962: "In Alan Lomax's[...] _The Folk Songs Of North America[...] a text is given of 'Frankie And Albert'[....] I obtained this song in the form of an unexpurgated pencil manuscript by[...] Palmer Jones[....] The manuscript was[...] handwritten in 1927[.... It] was given to me by the late Robert Carlton Brown, who got it from Hilaire Hiler, for whose father Palmer Jones had originally written it out." |
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15 Oct 18 - 08:19 PM (#3956821) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: GUEST,Joseph Scott Hilaire Hiler's father was Meyer Harzberg, born in the 1860s. He was in show business and he did travel to France, where Palmer Jones settled. |
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15 Oct 18 - 08:34 PM (#3956822) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: GUEST,Joseph Scott Possibly Jones wrote the lyrics out for one person in Omaha in 1908 and another in Europe in 1927. |
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15 Oct 18 - 09:23 PM (#3956828) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: Lighter Randolph's editor, Gershon Legman, was the collector of Jones's version. The substance of the passage: "In 1960, I supplied Alan Lomax with the oldest and best text of 'Frankie and Albert' ever collected (Omaha, Nebraska, 1908), from a Negro pianist and guitarist, Palmer Jones, whose main dates of activity were in Birmingham, Alabama, about 1904. Lomax printed this in his Folk Songs of North America (1960) pp. 557-58 and 569-70 - with over thirty editorial improvements, including changing the .41 gun to a .44; and also expurgating mild profanity, such as 'you faithless son of a bitch,' into long dashes with an *extra stanza* added at the end by Lomax from some other, unknown source, and with music not connected or collected with the text. Lomax also amusingly referred to the source of the original hand-written manuscript I supplied him as 'My present informant, Palmer Jones,' though Jones had been dead since 1928 when I was eleven years old, and Lomax not much older. ... "I do feel that I should at least make up here for his one worst blunder: the omission of the single and rather crucial stanza 8, containing all the very mild sexual action in the song, as differentiated from the murder details, *none* of which were omitted: "Then Frankie went down to the corner, Didn't mean no harm, Looked right up in a furnished room, Saw her Albert in Alice's arms. He was her man, he was doing her wrong." Clearly Legman had not gotten the manuscript from Jones himself. |
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15 Oct 18 - 09:33 PM (#3956830) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: Lighter Legman: "I obtained this song in the form of an unexpurgated pencil manuscript by a Negro pianist and singer, the late Palmer Jones, who stated that he had been taught to sing it by the exonerated murderess, Frankie Baker, herself, in the early 1900's. The manuscript - laboriously hand-written in 1927, when I was ten years old and can therefore hardly take much credit for it - was given to me by the late Robert Carlton Brown, who got it from Hilaire Hiler, for whose father Palmer Jones had originally written it out." |
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15 Oct 18 - 10:00 PM (#3956832) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: GUEST,Joseph Scott Where did Randolph get Omaha 1908? |
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16 Oct 18 - 08:40 AM (#3956872) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: Lighter If, as Legman says, Jones's lyrics were written out in 1927, the "1908" date loses some of its authority. Another "raunchy" text also appeared in 1927, with no source information, , in the anonymously published "Immortalia." |
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18 Oct 18 - 10:19 AM (#3957273) Subject: RE: Lyr Req: older/raunchier 'Frankie and Johnny' From: Charley Noble I'm not seeing one verse here that my mother used to sing, from Frankie's trial: They didn't charge Frankie in the first degree; They didn't charge her in the third: Frankie just went and shot her man Like a hunter drops a bird; He was her man, But he was doing her wrong! Cheerily, Charlie Ipcar |