ON THE TRAIL OF NEGRO FOLK-SONGS

A Collection Of Negro Traditional & Folk Songs with Sheet Music Lyrics & Commentaries - online book

	NEGRO BALLADS	83
	Frankie went to the courthouse; Courthouse look so high! Put her foot on the bottom step And hung her head and cry, "Oh, he was my man, but he done me wrong!" " Roll me over, doctor, Roll me over slow. Bullet in my left side And it pain my body so!" "Oh, he was my man, but he done me wrong!" Frankie had two children, A boy and a girl; Never see their papa any more Till they meet him in another world! "Oh, he was my man, but he done me wrong!" There are two tunes for the song. The more common air, taken down from the singing of W. H. Thomas and several others, and also sent in by Mrs. Bartlett, is the one I have always heard in Texas. Any of the versions of the song heretofore given can be sung to it, though the adaptable Negro voices have to do a reasonable amount of slurring and spreading out in places. One Texas stanza will serve to illustrate the tune: FRANKIE
	Frankie was a good woman, Ev'rybody knows, Gave forty-one dollars For her Albert a1 suit of clothes. Oh, he's my man, babe, but he done me wrong! This is extraordinarily effective when sung by a group of colored people, with its wailful refrain.