Bob Dylan: "Good As I Been To You" Song-By-Song Discussion

I think this is the 7th Dylan song-by-song discussion I've done (if you blinked you missed the "Great White Wonder" one, which was the most recent). I've found that these threads work best when a few guidelines are followed. If you find these guidelines too restrictive for your taste, please feel free to express your opinions about this album in one of the many Dylan threads on this forum that already exist. Those guidelines:

Please limit discussion to the song at hand, or songs that have already been discussed. Please avoid discussing the album as a whole. You can tell us your favorite song on the album when we get to it.

Please avoid posts that summarily dismiss a song, or the album as a whole. Every Bob Dylan song and performance, in my opinion, is worthy of discussion. (This most certainly does not suggest that they are all good.) If you wish to express your opinion that the album is not worth discussing, please do so by, well, not discussing it.

Please avoid the use of overwrought hyperbole, as it does not foster meaningful discussion. Please support, justify and explain your opinions, not because this is 10th grade English class all over again, but because those posts offer insight and fuel discussion (while "Awesome song!" and "Unlistenable!" do not).

It's my plan to follow the discussion of "GAIBTY" proper with a song-by-s0ng discussion of its second cousin twice removed, the 1992 sessions with David Bromberg, so please hold all your thoughts on that material until Froggie is finished a-courtin'.

I do not claim to be an authority on the sources of these traditional songs, nor have I read every Bob Dylan book ever written (has anyone?) I'm here to facilitate, not to lecture. So chime in with what you know, what you've read, and what you think!

 

My daughter is learning to crawl so I sing her Step it up and Go.

 

Track 1 - "Frankie & Albert"

Dylan's people are really good at keeping his officially-released material off of YouTube and similar sites. So in most cases I won't have a link to that performance. I assume the album can be heard for free on Spotify (or you can go "old school" and actually listen to the vinyl or CD).

It's interesting that the arrangement credit for this song was amended from "Bob Dylan" to "Mississippi John Hurt". Listening to MJH's version, it does seem to be the source of Dylan's guitar, but it is certainly not the source of Dylan's lyrics. Thus far, in fact, I've personally struck out in attempts to find ANY version that aligns strongly with Dylan's lyrics.

 

Interesting (to me anyway) that the split between "Frankie and Albert" and "Frankie and Johnny" had already taken place by the 1920s.

 

Wikipedia offers up some interesting (if conflicting) information about the source of the story behind the song.

The song was inspired by one or more actual murders. One of these took place in an apartment building located at 212 Targee Street in St. Louis, Missouri, at 2:00 on the morning of October 15, 1899. Frankie Baker (1876 – 1952),[1] a 22-year-old woman, shot her 17-year-old lover Allen (also known as "Albert") Britt in the abdomen. Britt had just returned from a cakewalk at a local dance hall, where he and another woman, Nelly Bly (also known as "Alice Pryor" and no relation to the pioneering reporter who adopted the pseudonym Nellie Bly), had won a prize in a slow-dancing contest. Britt died of his wounds four days later at the City Hospital.[2][3][4] On trial, Baker claimed that Britt had attacked her with a knife and that she acted in self-defense; she was acquitted and died in a Portland, Oregon, mental institution in 1952.

Frankie and Johnny (song) - Wikipedia

 

Paul Brady's name will come up again in this thread, when we get to "Arthur McBride". He was also Dylan's first-hand in-person source for "The Lakes of Pontchartrain", the traditional that Dylan performed extensively at the beginning of the Never-Ending Tour. (Brady also appears to be Dylan's source for "Mary and the Soldier".)

Here's Brady take on "Frankie & Albert". Once again, there are wide gaps between Brady's lyrics and the ones Dylan used.

 

Bob Dylan the musicologist takes prominence every now and then. The occasional cover on the NET, his radio show and the early 90s acoustic albums. I have learned a lot about American roots music through Bob. I recall hearing Bob sing "Pancho And Lefty" in 1989 and 1992. This performance reminded me the murder ballad goes back much farther than Townes Van Zandt. I like Bob's voice on these recordings recorded before he went full Howlin' Wolf. I see these records as Bob reconnecting with the music that inspired him after having lost his way in the Eighties.

 

I haven't touched on DYLAN's performance of "Frankie & Albert" just yet, so let's go there. When I first heard this track in 1992, I was vaguely familiar with Elvis' "Frankie and Johnny", but otherwise, this was all new to me. I considered "Frankie and Johnny" to be lightweight Elvis movie-fluff, so hearing Dylan's gritty version of the "real thing" was quite the revelation. I think he sounds great - fully committed to the song. I love the way he sings "rooty-toot-toot" to describe the spontaneity of the fateful moment. For those in the "Dylan can write great songs but he can't sing" camp. this cover is Exhibit A against that theory. The emotion in his voice (Alice is hurt, she is angry, she is saddened, she is repentant, she is resigned) just hits the spot for me. Digging back through a number of earlier performances of the song by a whole host of artists, I've never found a version that got to me in the manner that Dylan's does.

 

Interestingly, bobdylan.com continues to give Dylan an arranger credit for the song.

The lyric transcription leaves a great deal to be desired.

1. Frankie was a good girl.
Everybody knows.
For Albert's new suite of clothes.
He was her man but he done her wrong.

2. Albert said, "I'm leaving you.
Won't be gone for long.
Don't wait for me.
A-worry about me when I'm gone."
He was her man but he done her wrong.

3. Frankie went down to the corner saloon.
Get a bucket of beer.
Said to the bartender.
"Has my lovin' man been here?"
He was her man but he done her wrong.

Instrumental

4. "Well, I ain't gonna tell you no stories.
I ain't gonna tell you no lies.
I saw Albert an hour ago.
With a gal named Alice Bly."
He was her man but he done her wrong.

5. Frankie went down to 12th Street.
Lookin' up through the window high.
She saw her Albert there.
Lovein' up Alice Bly.
He was her man but he done her wrong.

Instrumental

6. Frankie pulled out a pistol.
Pulled out a forty-four.
Gun went off a rootie-toot-toot
And Albert fell on the floor.
He was her man but he done her wrong.

7. Frankie got down upon her knees.
Took Albert into her lap.
Started to hug and kiss him.
But there was no bringin' him back.
He was her man but he done her wrong.

Instrumental

8. "Gimme a thousand policemen.
Throw me into a cell.
I shot my Albert dead.
And now I'm goin' to hell.
He was her man but he done me wrong."

9. Judge said to the jury.
"Plain as a thing can be.
A woman shot her lover down.
Murder in the second degree."
He was her man but he done her wrong.

Instrumental

10. Frankie went to the scaffold.
Calm as a girl could be.
Turned her eyes up towards the heavens.
Said, "Nearer, my God, to Thee."
He was her man but he done her wrong.

 

Another performance from a Dylan favorite:



Lead Belly's version includes Albert's mother in the narrative. Interesting to note that Frankie goes for a bottle of beer in Lead Belly's version, but Dylan has her go for a bucket of beer, echoing the line from Dylan's version of "Candyman", "Run and get the bucket get the baby some beer".

Also interesting to note that the "origin stories" (be they apocryphal or not) for "Frankie and Albert", "Stack-a-Lee" (covered on "World Gone Wrong") and "Duncan and Brady" (part of the Bromberg sessions) are all set in St. Louis in the 1890s!

 

Here is Charlie Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers' take on the story of Frankie & Johnny....

 

If you get a chance, check out Darby & Tarleton's "Frankie Dean" for an eerie version of the legend...

 

Was a rough town!

I love Dylan's version of the tune. I'd love to know the source of his lyric choices--or to whatever extent he gave them a shaping of his own. It's an unusually tight run-through of the narrative, and it's as you noted earlier, sung with great energy and expressiveness--ragged guitar part and all!

L.

 

The Wikipedia entry for the album suggests that Dylan recorded the album "without the use of notes or lyrics", which I find really difficult to believe. As you say, Dylan's version of the narrative in "Frankie and Albert" is tight, perhaps the tightest I've come across. There's not a fumble or mumble to be had.

 

That should be Frankie, not Alice.

 

He sounds so alive to every narrative and emotional detail. The way he gets inside poor Frankie's point of view in verses 7 and 8, for example, is just wonderful. In a lot of other recordings of the song, the verses just slide by without much sense of narrative tension (and sometimes not in the right narrative order). Here, we feel it move forward step by urgent step, right up to the gallows.

L.

 

"Frankie went to the scaffold.
Calm as a girl could be."

"Rosemary on the gallows,
She didn't even blink."

 

This is Taj Mahal's version, recorded March 1973. Pointer Sisters on backing vocals. "A variant of the well-known "Frankie and Johnny", John Hurt recorded this in 1928.

Frankie and Albert were sweet hearts
Lord how they could love
Vowed to love one another
Baby 'neath the stars above
It was her man and he was doin' her wrong

Frankie went down to the bar room
To get herself a bucket of beer
Say hey to da' lone bartender
Say hey has my lovely man been here?
It was my man, an' he was doing me wrong

Bartender said "Ms Frankie
Honey I can't tell you no lie
He left here about an hour ago
With that hussie named Nelly Bly
It was your man, he was doing you wrong"

Frankie, she cried, she cried, she cried
Lord what have I done?
I done give lovin' to this man
He took my love and run
It was my man, and he was doing me wrong

Albert saw Frankie comin', He say
"Oh Lord baby, don't you shoot
Well you know, out from under that red kimono"
The gun went rootie toot toot
She shot that man 'cause he was doin' her wrong

Boo hoo, boo hoo, boo hoo, boo hoo
Frankie say baby what have I done?
You know I shot the only man I loved a cold 41
It was my man an' he was doin' me wrong

Play it for a while

High Sheriff come clippety, clippety, clippety, clippety
Clippety, clippety, clippety the trail
I say, "Look here Frankie I'm gon' tell ya'
You done shot yo' man,
I'm gon' hafta' put cha in da' county jail"
Talkin' 'bout that man an' he was doin' her wrong

Frankie she laid in da' jail house
Now ya' know there ain't no one to go her bail
But 'cha know big Jim say honey
"I'm workin' on you, try to get you outta that jail"
Tell about yo' man 'cause he was doin' you wrong

An' our story go on

Frankie an' Albert were sweethearts
Lord how they could love
Vowed to love one another
Underneath the stars above
Talkin' 'bout that man an' he was doin' her wrong

 

Where the heck does Big Jim come from in the penultimate verse?

 

Maybe Rosemary actually killed the Jack of Hearts and did a body switch?

L.

 

I don't know...but I listened all the way through to make certain it was accurate!

 

Why was the murder just second degree? I'm no lawyer, but wouldn't this be first degree?

 

Our good friends at Wikipedia seem to back up the lyrics:

• First-degree murder: any intentional murder that is willful and premeditated with malice aforethought. Felony murder, a charge that may be filed against a defendant who is involved in a dangerous crime where a death results from the crime,[71] is typically first-degree.[72]
• Second-degree murder: any intentional murder with malice aforethought, but is not premeditated or planned.

The legal precedent set by Missouri vs. Frankie is known as the "Rooty Toot Toot Rule".

 

Thus I fail the Dylan song-by-song bar exam. I guess it was plain as plain could be.

Looking forward to following this thread - I received Good As I Been to You as a present from my dad for my 11th birthday. It was Dylan's new album at the time, and I'd recently become a huge fan of the Greatest Hits album and Highway 61 Revisited. However, this one dumbfounded me, being 11 and all, since I had no idea where these songs came from. I listened to the first couple of songs and climbed onto a bus to 5th grade class, mind definitely blown, wondering what these stories were all about. A straight-up, no-production folk covers album in 1992 sounded like something from another planet to me. Years later, Dylan's music is still leading me to wonderful musical discoveries, thanks to his covers and influences. Love this album.

 

Track 2 - "Jim Jones"

Unlike "Frankie & Albert", which Dylan never performed live, "Jim Jones" got a fairly extensive workout in concert in 1993 (31 performances).

Here is the last of those performances, at the Supper Club:



Here's a performance from earlier in the year with a sparser arrangement: Bob Dylan - Jim Jones (London 1993)

Although the Wikipedia entry for "Good As I Been To You" doesn't mention it, and bobdylan.com still gives Dylan arranger credit, it appears that the arranger credit was changed to Mick Slocum. In fact, Slocum wrote his own tune to go with the traditional lyric, so he should be credited as an author rather than arranger. Anyone have a newer reissue of the album to check this fact out?

Here's a detailed interview in regards to that: Google Groups

This is, obviously, an Australian folk song.

Here is a performance with, one assumes, the original traditional tune: Jim Jones At Botany Bay

On to Dylan's performance. This is one of my two favorite tracks on "GAIBTY". This is another impassioned vocal, with Dylan making us feel for the convicted criminal who is seeking revenge. I never tire of hearing him sing this song.