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.).