American
folk song of uncertain authorship and origin, with a zillion different
verses, depending on who you hear sing it. The
song tells the
story of a sordid
love affair between two people of less than stellar reputations: Frankie is probably a
prostitute, and Johnny is a
gambler. In her fashion, Frankie is faithful to Johnny, but he's not, so "she shot her man." She usually lives to tell the tale.
Frankie Baker claimed the song was written about her, as she shot her 16-year-old
beau in
St. Louis in 1899, but the song was reported sung at the
siege of Vicksburg (
1863), and there are reports of this song going back to 1840. An early attribution points to
1833, when a woman whose first name was Frankie shot her husband, Charles Silver, at Toe River,
North Carolina-- although
Delta blues scholars scoff at the notion that
Mississippi blues players would have written a song about events in North Carolina. In the folk tradition, new verses probably came up everytime a
woman shot her
man or a woman named Frankie got a hold of the song.