Frankie and johnny

                                                                    Oh Trankie and johnny were lovers
                                                                    Oh Lordy how Ihey did love.1
                                                                                            OLD BALLAD

Frankie was a halfwit, johnny was a nigger,
    Frankie liked to pain poor creatures as a little 'un,
Kept a crazy love of torment when she got bigger,
    Johnny had to slave it and never had much fun.

Frankie liked to pull wings off of living butterflies,
    Frankie liked to cut long angleworms in half,
Frankie liked to whip curs and listen to their drawn out cries,
    Frankie liked to shy stones at the brindle calf.

Frankie took her pappy's lunch week-days to the sawmill,
    Her pappy, red-faced cracker, with a cracker's thirst,
Beat her skinny body and reviled the hateful imbecile,
    She screamed at every blow he struck, but tittered when he curst.

Frankie had to cut through Johnny's field of sugar corn
    Used to wave at Johnny, who didn't pay no min
Had had to work like flity from the day that he was born,
    And wan't no cracker hussy gonna put his work behInd-.

But everyday Frankie swung along the cornfield lane,
    And one day johnny helped her partly through the wood,
Once he had dropped his plow lines, he dropped thern many times again
    Though his mother didn't know it, else she'd have whipped him good.

Frankie and Johnny were lovers; oh Lordy how they did love!
    But one day Frankie's pappy by a big log laid him low,
To find out what his crazy Frankie had been speaking of;
    He found that what his gal had muttered was exactly so.

Frankie, she was spindly limbed with corn silk on her crazy head,
    Johnny was a nigger, who never had much fun
They swung up Johnny on a tree, and filled his swinging hide with lead,
    And Frankie yowled hilariously when the thing was done.