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Frankie was a good woman

Sing Out! Posted on by
Glenna Bell
For my final installment on “Frankie and Johnny,” I want to pick out two versions that, while not necessarily representing the kind of girl anthem (sardonic or otherwise) of Judy Henske’s “Love Henry,” still present a woman’s voice taking over the song in some new ways.  It’s in some respects unsurprising that this would happen, given the story the song tells.”  “Frankie” variants, by a rough estimate, seem to have a slightly higher than average percentage of female interpreters for a murder ballad (roughly 1 out of 8 on Spotify for “Frankie and Johnny”).  


The two interpretations of the song I’ll present next introduce some new aspects to the “morality play” elements of the song.  I’m sorry to say that I can’t find video recordings.
 
Michelle Shocked’s “Hold Me Back,” from her album Arkansas Traveler, represents a contemporary confabulation, more than an integration of the song’s elements.  The song is still sung in the third person, that is, “about” Frankie and Johnny, rather than “by” them, but Shocked adds new refrains for Frankie to sing, most importantly, “don’t let me do what must be done.”  This adds an interesting, if concise, view of conflicted human will, but appears to concur in the judgment that Johnny’s unfaithfulness earns him what he gets.
 
 
[Incidentally, can we just take a moment to note how many upbeat, uptempo versions of this song there are out there.  On balance, I’d say that this tune comes across a bit shorter on pathos than much of the genre–more often contrasting with, and less often confirming, the gist of the story.  I’d be interested in your thoughts about this.]
 
Glenna Bell’s version is distinctive because it’s sung in the first-person—the singer is Frankie.  This version doesn’t change the story much (as with Sammy Davis Jr. or Johnny Cash), but our protagonist’s developing frame of mind throughout is subtly signaled.  Frankie turns herself in, but keeps much of the remorse, panic, and anguish under the surface.  It seems like a rather resigned rendering of the situation, or perhaps just emotionally flat, as though Glenna Bell’s “Frankie” also just felt that she did what had to be done–or was struggling to keep up emotionally and practically with what she had done.   Bell apparently hears and feels a lot more, and makes some interesting comments in this interview about the power of inhabiting the protagonists’ roles when she sings murder ballads.
 
 
The interview is interesting, and worth considering with regard to what the singer experiences by inhabiting the roles within the song.  In earlier weeks, for the purposes of discussion we’ve placed singers and listeners in the same boat, more or less, when it comes to experiencing the song.  I think it will be worthwhile, though, to draw out how these musical experiences differ.  Why people sing these songs and why people listen to them present distinct questions; although one person’s answer to the latter is going to depend a whole lot on somebody else figuring out an answer to the former.
 
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Coda
 
Anna Domino of Snakefarm
(see “Omie Wise“)

Thanks very much for staying with me through “Frankie and Albert/Johnny” this week.  It’s been quite a lot, and I don’t think I would have picked it for this week if I knew then what I know now.  Next week won’t have as many installments, but will go to some interesting places, I think.  As I’ve said before, we’ll probably have to get back to “Frankie” another time.  This story has no end, and there are many other places we can go with it, and many other remarkable performances.

 
By the way, this is my current favorite contemporary version.
 
 
 

Related posts:

  1. Poor boy, you’re bound to die
  2. “Gambler’s Blues” (Unfortunate Rake, Part Two)
  3. Jon Langford interview, Part Two
  4. Ain’t gonna tell you no lies

Comments

Frankie was a good woman — 8 Comments

  1. A great series of posts by the way – I hope you can keep this up!

    Gavin

    • Thanks! We’re doing our best to pace ourselves. (Frankie and Albert/Johnny week excepted.)

  2. There’s just so much here that you’ve shared this week. It’s overwhelming. But it strikes me that the bulk of what we’ve seen is ultimately packaged for entertainment.
    However, this week has been super busy for me, and I admit to not having been able to process all you’ve presented here nearly as well as I should have to make definitive claims.

    So, of all of the versions you’ve posted and studied Ken, which really function in that place that older folk ballads do?

    Is it that this starts out as a ‘people’s song’ that translates to good mass entertainment? Is that a false dichotomy? Is it so effective in Hollywood for example because the theme of infidelity and the emotions it evokes are essentially universal?

    I guess what I’m asking is, do we keep connecting to this song because it’s real to us, or because it’s fun for us? Does that difference matter?

    • Interesting questions. I think you’re right that somewhere around the second or third posts, we moved decisively away from the “Folk” type to the “Popular” type. I think you’re right that the song is more fun and entertaining for us now than it is real to us.

      Part of this issue is complicated by questions of gender and race and cultural appropriation (see my reply to Shaleane’s comment on “Ain’t going to tell you no stories.”) There’s a way that this song eventually contains more of an empowerment element to it, but only for certain singers, it seems, and not others.

      Also, I don’t know if I can completely answer the question of which versions function in the place that the older folk ballads do. It’s probably right to consider “functioning how?” and “for whom?”. I think Glenna Bell’s version, putting herself in Frankie’s shoes, probably does what I think you mean by that.

      Her comments in the linked article support that idea. That kind of inhabiting the narrative is one function. As performer, she says that she goes through her imagined Frankie’s experience of having her emotional response overtake her rational one, and then she has to come to grips with that as her punishment approaches.

      As for the cathartic elements of the song as a story we can witness, rather than inhabit, I’d say that that question gets complicated by the extent to which the listeners identify it as a universal story or as a story of another (“an other”). There are interesting dynamics of sympathy and distancing. Sometimes these songs help people because they talk about people not like us–in a way, I think Mae West’s loose (no pun intended) film interpretation intended to do that for audiences.

      Finally, the question is challenging to answer on the “for whom?” front because the issue of relationship infidelity might have different levels or kinds of salience depending on the singer and the listener–whether because of gender or some other factor. (It’s probably worth unpacking at some point that no song ever maintains that Frankie and Albert/Johnny were married.) Or, if not infidelity’s salience, at least what one does about it–either by reason or instinct.

      I did a quick scan down through a list of murder ballads, and I can’t find one easily where the tables are turned gender-wise to give us a flipped around version of “Frankie and Johnny.” In fact, as we’ll see, when the woman cheats on a man, it’s usually the lover of the unfaithful woman who is killed by the cuckolded man, not the unfaithful woman. You may know of exceptions.

      I would have said before starting this week that I connected with the song mostly because it was fun. I think I would still say that, although through this week of discussion, I’ve gained an increased appreciation of how real it can be, if not for me, at least for others.

    • Quick comment about the exceptions to the general rule about the unfaithful woman living to tell about it, all of them contemporary songs:

      > Willie Nelson’s entire iconic album entitled “Red Headed Stranger” is about a man on the run from the law after he kills his unfaithful wife and her lover. So, yes, the lover is killed too, but so is the woman. Country legend Porter Wagoner’s “The Cold Hard Facts of Life,” is also a chilling account of a man killing his cheating wife and her lover. And how about “Ruby Don’t Take your Love to Town,” by Kenny Rogers…and many other country ballads and other song types that describe the murder of a cheating woman, or at least the fantasies that the wronged man has about such a murder.

      > “Run for Your Life” is of course about the threat of such a murder, and Lennon stole a key line from Elvis Presley’s “Baby Let’s Play House.”

      > “Down by the River,” by Neil Young – great, epic song!

      I know we’ll be getting to some of these in future posts.

    • Also, Little Musgrave / Matty Groves has a duel between husband and wife’s lover, which kills the lover and usually mortally wounds the husband. Before he dies, he asks his wife who she likes best now (seeing as how he just sacrificed his life for her love and all…) Her answer earns her death in most versions, and a most hideous one at that in several variants.

    • Thanks. I knew there would be exceptions, and good ones. It’s not surprising to me that most of them are relatively contemporary–probably an ironic sign of progress. I hadn’t put that part together about “Down By the River,” as it’s a bit less ballad-like in its narrative.

      I simply forgot about that part of “Matty Groves”–I usually fast forward through that one when driving on road trips with the kids (I’m going to talk a bit about that this week).

      So, yes, “Frankie” does seem to function in a parallel space–although there is more of a horror aspect to “Matty Groves.” Also, “Matty” seems to me to be similar to “Fair Ellender” in that some of the crucial issues involve actual marriage (as “Frankie” does not) and property. There’s another, related aspect of motivation for the Lord in “Matty Groves,” that I won’t go into now, in anticipation of your discussion in a few weeks.

      The trickier part for me in all of this is distinguishing in my mind the case of Frankie Baker, the prostitute, and Al Britt, the pimp, on the on the one hand, from “Frankie” and “Albert/Johnny,” the sweethearts, on the others. Which version you sing, or just how many aspects of the real case one decides to apply to the song changes some of these themes pretty significantly.

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