Dickie and Johnson

Dickie and Johnson

Folk songs

This is a recording of Mae Phillips (Maw Maw Phillips) singing the song "Dickie and Johnson" (Roud 17). Bobby McMillon recorded the tape this is from and introduces the songs there: "[This] was recorded late in 1968 and in the spring of 1969 at Lower Creek, Lenoir, North Carolina, at the home of my uncle Goldman McMillon. Mrs. Walters Phillips, my uncle’s mother-in-law, from Maryville, Tennessee, is singing old songs that she learned as she grew up in the Cosby section of Cocke County, Tennessee. My father’s people were raised there, and that’s where my uncle met Mrs. Phillips’ daughter. Mrs. Phillips is singing love songs and old-timey ballads that she learned when she was a child from different people in the Cosby, Hartford, Tennessee area and the Mount Sterling and Crestmont area of North Carolina."

Bobby McMillon

Bobby McMillon Collection, Southern Appalachian Archives, Mars Hill University

Southern Appalachian Archives, Liston B. Ramsey Center for Appalachian Studies, Mars Hill University

1968-1969

This item may be viewed, downloaded, and printed for personal and educational use, but any commercial use is prohibited without permission from the Southern Appalachian Archives, Mars Hill University. Questions may be directed to the Archivist at (828) 689-1262 or archives@mhu.edu.

mp3

English

Music

Cassette

1 minute, 55 seconds

Dickie said to Johnson, one cold winter day:
“Let’s go up on the mountain and pass the time away”

They rode and they rode ‘til they came to the mountainside
And Johnson said to Dickie, “I heard a woman cry.”

They looked up to their right and they looked up to their left
They spied a naked woman chained down by herself

“Oh woman, cruel woman, what are you doing down there?”
“The robbers have robbed me and left me here to die.”

Dickie being kind worried and easy for to mind
He wrapped her in an overcoat and put her up behind

They rode and they rode, ten thousand miles or more
‘Til there they spied seven robbers, all standing in a row

Johnson said to Dickie, “We’d better take wings and fly”
But Dickie said to Johnson, “Before I’ll fly, I’ll die”

They fought and they fought ‘til the sun was going down
They killed six of the robbers, the seventh couldn’t be found

[__] kind-worried laid down to take his rest
Up stepped the cruel woman and stabbed him in the breast

“Oh woman, cruel woman, see what you have done?
You’ve killed the bravest soldier that ever fired a gun.”