NUMBER ONE WITH A BULLET

by Robert Lopresti

Today we are going to discuss the disgraceful trend in popular music that glorifies criminal activity, violence against women, disrespect for the police, and the abuse of illegal substances, such as bootleg alcohol—

Oh, you thought I was talking about rap music? Sorry. Songs about bandits have been around for a long time.

After my earlier column on British crime ballads I started thinking about American crime ballads. A lot of the biggies are based on true events.

Hang down your head:

Some of you may be old enough to remember one of the big hits of the folk revival: “Tom Dooley.” You may not know that it was based on a North Carolina murder in the 1860s for which a man named Tom Dula was hanged. As with almost any crime that becomes part of popular culture, there are debates as to whether he was the guilty party.

A man named Frank Profitt sang “Tom Dula” to a folksong collector named Frank Warner. Later the Kingston Trio recorded it and the catchy performance and air of mystery—who was Grayson anyway? A lover? A lawman?—combined to create a big money-maker.

I have been told that Frank Profitt was offended by the hit version; felt that they were making fun of him. If this is true I suppose he wasn’t the last or first “source” to be burned by reporters.

He done her wrong:

“Frankie and Johnny” has been recorded more than 250 times (and, God help us, made into a movie starring Elvis Presley: surely a fate worse than murder). This story of a woman who killed her unfaithful lover was first published at the turn of the century and some people claim it was based on an 1899 murder.

But others (including noted folk aficianado Carl Sandburg) claim that the song is significantly older, possibly almost a century older. (Maybe the murder was based on the song?)

But the number one hit:

My favorite American murder ballad is “The Bully of the Town.” This was supposedly a show tune written by a sportswriter named Charles E. Trevathan, in 1895. He is said to have based it on “Ella Speed,” a Negro ballad about the death of a New Orleans prostitute.

Sounds simple, but I have heard “Ella Speed” and I would have never guessed the two had anything in common. The folk process has removed everything about the prostitute (and the unacceptably racist lyrics) from all the versions of “Bully” that I have heard. Instead the lyrics go mostly like this:

I’m looking for the bully, the bully of the town
I’m looking for the bully but that bully can’t be found
I’m looking for the bully of the town.

Well, it goes on but that’s the gist of it. The narrator wanders around trying to find the bully, bragging about how he is going to clobber the guy, and never finds him.

You may say there isn’t a mystery here. There isn’t even a plot. Ah, but look a little deeper. The narrator, a loud, bragging, violently-inclined man, has heard that people are being bothered by a bully, so he goes swaggering around, demanding to know where the bully is, and threatening to beat him up. But strangely, no one can tell him where—or even who—the bully is.

The bully is looking for himself, and he doesn’t know it. This is old time music as it might have been written by Edgar Allan Poe, or Jorge Luis Borges. Sometimes strange things show up between the banjo solo and the mandolin vamp.

Next time I shall explain the deep socio-economic implications of the song “Possum up the Gum Stump.” Or better yet, I won’t.