The Bully Song

A popular song of the south is "Bully of the Town." Ragtime emerges as a new musical style. St. Louis is the Ragtime hothouse.

Madame Babe’s is a famous, classy St. Louis brothel. Madame Babe once refused to have Oscar Wilde in her house. Mama Lou, the house singer, is renown for belting out her version of “Bully of the Town.”

On a train from Chicago to San Francisco, white sports writer, horse judge and amateur musician, Charles E. Trevathan, plays the song to amuse fellow passengers. Making no mention of St. Louis brothels, he claims to have learned the tune from Tennessee blacks. The passengers encourage him to put lyrics to it. He does.

May Irwin, Trevathan’s girlfriend, sings his “The Bully Song” in the Broadway musical, “The Widow Jones.” Although it pre-dates Lee Shelton’s inclusion in the song and is arguably used in a non-pejorative sense, this is the only time a white person records the word “nigger” in the Stagger Lee bloodline.

The Bully Song could be considered a precursor to Stagger Lee in terms of themes and narrative style. Written in 1895 by Charles Trevathan and popularized by May Irwin, The Bully Song tells a dramatic tale of a violent confrontation, highlighting bravado and criminal activity—key elements often associated with folk ballads of the time.

While The Bully Song lacks direct narrative or character links to Stagger Lee, it represents a broader tradition of "bad man ballads," which glorified or sensationalized notorious figures and their exploits. These songs often served as oral storytelling vehicles, preserving details of crimes, duels, or local scandals in a larger-than-life fashion.

Stagger Lee is thought to have originated in the same era, based on an 1895 St. Louis murder involving Lee Shelton, a pimp and gambler, and Billy Lyons. The song evolved from this real-life event into a similarly styled ballad, with numerous variations that dramatize and mythologize the story.

Both songs reflect the late 19th-century fascination with gritty, larger-than-life characters and can be seen as part of a continuum of American musical folklore. The Bully Song may not directly reference Stagger Lee, but its themes and style likely influenced the narrative folk tradition from which Stagger Lee emerged.

BULLY OF THE TOWN- Charles E. Trevathan

Have yo' heard about dat bully dat's just come to town?
He's looking among de *fellers a-layin' their bodies down.
I'm a-looking for dat bully, and he must be found.
I'm a Tennessee nigger, and I don't allow
No red-eyed river roustabout with me to raise a row.
I'm lookin' for dat bully to make him bow.

Chorus:
When I walk dat levee round, round, round, round, 
When I walk dat levee round, round, round, round, 
When I walk dat levee round, I'm lookin' for dat bully, and he must be found.

I's gwine down the street with my ax in hand,
I'm lookin' for dat bully, and I'll sweep him off dis land.
I'm lookin' for dat bully, and he must be found.
I'll take 'long my razor, I's gwine to carve him deep,
And when I see dat bully, I'll lay him down to sleep.
I'm looking for dat bully, and he must be found

(Chorus)

I went to a wingin' down at Parson Jones',
Took along my trusty blade to carve dat *feller's bones.
Just a-lookin' for dat bully to hear his groans.
I coonjined in de from door, the mens were prancin' high,
For dat levee feller I skinned my foxy eye.
Just a-lookin' for dat bully, but he wa'n't nigh

(Chorus)
     
I asked Miss Pansy Blossom if she would wing a reel,
She said, "Law', Mr. Johnsing, how high you make me feel."
The you ought to see me shake my sugar heel.
I was sandin' down the Mobile Buck just to cut a shine,
Some coon across my smeller swiped a watermelon rin'.
I drew my steel dat gemmen for to fin'.

I riz up like a black cloud and took a look aroun',
There was dat new bully standin' on de ground.
I've been lookin' for you, nigger, and I've got you found.
Razors's gun flyin', feller 'gun to squawk,
I lit upon dat bully just like a sparrow hawk,
And dat *feller was just a-dyin' to take a walk.

(Chorus)
     
When I got through with bully, a doctor and a nurse
Weren't no good to dat feller, so they put him in a hearse,
A cyclone couldn't have tore him up much worse.
You don't hear 'bout dat nigger dat treated folks so free,
Go down upon de levee and his face you'll never see.
Dere's only one boss bully, and dat one's me

(Chorus)
     
Encore:
When you see me comin' hist your window high;
when you see me goin' hang your head and cry;
I'm lookin' for dat bully and he must die.
My madness keeps a-risin' and I'se not gwine to get left,
I'm gettin' so bad dat I'm askeered of myself.
I was lookin' for dat bully, now he's on de shelf.

(Chorus)

The song "Bully of the Town" was originally written by Charles E. Trevathan (a southern sports writer, horse judge and amateur musician) in 1895 for the stage show "The Widow Jones" which opened at the Bijou Theater, New York City that September. It was sung in the production by Trevathan's girl-friend, May Irwin.

"Bully of the Town" is mentioned as one of the frequently played tunes in a 1931 account of a LaFollette, northeast Tennessee fiddlers' contest. It was in the repertoire of Skillet Licker fiddler Clayton McMichen (Ga.) who recorded the tune with that group in a triple fiddle version at their first recording session in 1926. Musicologist/folklorist Vance Randolph recorded the tune from Ozark Mountain fiddlers for the Library of Congress in the early 1940's." (Kuntz, Fiddler's Companion, http://www.ceolas.org/tunes/fc)

John Garst finds that the song "Bully of the Town" was developed from an earlier blues ballad called "Ella Speed," based on a real-life incident in New Orleans in the middle years of the "Gay 90's." Garst relates that in September, 1894, Ella was a twenty-eight year old black or mullato prostitute living in a "sporting house" on what is now Iberville Street in the French Quarter. She was the object of the obsessive attentions of Louis "Bull" Martin or Martini, a bartending white Italian-American whom she had met several months previously at another establishment, and who wanted to set her up in an apartment as his mistress, a not uncommon arrangement at the time. Ella, however was lukewarm to him-she liked his money, but didn't care much for the man-and at any rate, she already had a husband, one Willie Speed. Louis was a bully who had been arrested and tried on three separate occasions on assault and battery charges, and who at the time of the murder was wanted by the constable for yet another brutal beating, that of an elderly black man near his place of work. Louis reportedly became enraged at the thought that she might be fond of another man (whether Willie or not). One night, after a day spent recreating, dining and drinking, they returned late to the bordello in which she was staying and, feeling the effects of their partying, retired at around 2:00 AM. The next time Ella was seen was in the morning when she screamed and emerged from her second story room, saying "Help me, Miss Pauline!, Louis shot me!" She collapsed in the hallway, just as the onrushing Madame spied Louis in the doorway, holding a smoking pistol. Louis disappeared, and soon a deputy arrived followed by an ambulance; but too late, for Ella had been shot through the breast with the bullet piecing her heart, left lung and liver, from which wounds she soon bleed to death. A manhunt was raised to find Louis, who after a day turned himself in at the residence of a police Captain. He was arrested, held and charged with murder. After a trial a jury found him guilty of manslaughter, despite Louis's claim the shooting was an accident, and if Louis had counted on getting off easy with the reduced finding he was mistaken, for Judge John H. Ferguson (originally from Massachusetts) sentenced him to twenty years in prison, which Garst says was a stiff sentence for the time. Garst thinks that the song "Ella Speed" appeared soon after the initial shooting and was based on newspaper accounts. "Ella Speed" appears in the collected papers of John A. Lomax (in a Texas version from 1909) and Carl Sandburg included it in his volume American Songbag (1927). Under the title "Bill Martin and Ella Speed," it was recorded several times by Leadbelly between 1933 and 1950, and in fact was recorded by several blues performers, including Mance Lipscomb, Tom Shaw, Tricky Same, Finious Rockmore, Lightnin' Hopkins and Jewel Long (as researched by John Cowley). Garst bases his hypothesis that "Ella Speed" was the model for "Bully of the Town" on three points: 1) the fact that "Bully" appeared a year or two after the "Ella" song, 2) the fact that Louis was a bully and the subject of a massive police hunt, as intimated in both songs, and 3) the similarity between the melodies of "Ella" and "Bully." He believes Trevathan heard "Ella Speed" from a black musician friend named Cooley, and that Trevathan substantially rewrote it, ending up with "Bully of the Town" (Trevathan gave several accounts of how he came to write the song).

MORE NOTES: Sports writer and horse racing judge, Charles E. Trevathan, on the train back to Chicago from San Francisco in 1894, playing his guitar and humming popular airs to amuse the passengers around him among whom was May Irwin. He said he had learned the tune of "The Bully" from Tennessee blacks. Irwin suggested that he put words to the tune, which he did, and published it in 1896. She incorporated the song in her stage play, "The Widow Jones." She first performed it on Sep. 16th 1895 in the Bijou theatre in New York . The song was popularized before Trevanthan got it by 'Mama Lou,' a short, fat, homely, belligerent powerhouse of a singer in Babe Connor's classy St. Louis brothel, a popular establishment in the 1890s that drew from all social classes for its clientele. Either Trevathan picked up the song from Mama Lou or learned it from black oral tradition in the South of the early 1890s. There were several sheet music versions of 'The Bully' published, some preceding Trevathan's 1896 version. May Irwin later raised cattle in the 1000 islands, and is reputed to be the originator of Thousand Island Dressing.

In the Original lyrics (Version 1) contain the phrase- "I coonjined in the front door, the coons were prancin' high, for dat levee darky I skinned my foxy eye…" Here’s an explanation of the term conjoined from Mudcat, “Yesterday I stumbled onto a book in a second hand shop that explained that term. The book is "John Henry" by Roark Bradford, printed in 1935. It's a 225-page novel that seems to tell the story of John Henry, written in African-American dialect, and uses lyrics from a lot of folk and blues songs as part of the text. In idly flipping through it, my eye fell on a chapter headed "Coonjine" – and there it was! Coonjine was a step used by levee workers as they rolled (or in John Henry's case carried) 500-pound bales of cotton up the long springy planks from docks onto the boats. From the book – "And so John Henry got a spring in his knees and a weave in his hips, and a buck in his back… 'Jine it, you coon, jine it!' said the mate. 'Grab your cotton and jine that step!'

"Coonjine" was the term used by roustabouts for the hurried, but very carefully balanced walk used when carrying a heavy load to or from the decks of a steamboat. Some informant described it to Mary Wheeler (author of Steamboatin' Days) as resembling the movement of a raccoon on a slender branch. Too much bouncing up and down on a quite springy plank was likely to toss the roustabout and his load into the river.