Bad-Man Stagolee

stetson and boots

Bad-Man Stagolee
By Margaret Walker
From For My People (1942)

That Stagolee was an all-right lad
Till he killed a cop and turned out bad
Though some do say to this very day
He killed more’n one ‘fore he killed that ‘fay.
But anyhow the tale ain’t new
How Stagolee just up and slew
A big policeman on ’leventh street
And all he knowed was tweet-tweet-tweet
Oh I ‘speck he’d done some too-bad dirt
Wid dat blade he wore unnerneaf his shirt
And it ain’t been said, but he coulda had
A dirk in his pocket ‘cause he sho was bad
But one thing’s certain and two things’s sho
His bullets made holes no doc could cyo.
And that there cop was good and done
When he met Stagolee and that blue boy’s gun.
But the funniest thing about the job
Was he never got caught by no mob
And he missed the lynching meant for his hide
‘Cause nobody knows how Stagolee died.
Bad-Man Stagolee ain’t no more
But his ghost still walks up and down the shore
Of Old Man River round New Orleans
With her gumbo, rice, and good red beans!


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