Can Songs Kill? The Leo Frank Trial and the Ballad of Little Mary Phagan

Welcome: 00:00
Introduction 01:17
The Crime and Trials 05:55
The Media, the Politics, the Music 11:51
It’s Still Relevant 17:52

I recommend you do your own research on this complex topic! Author Steve Oney’s “And the Dead Shall Rise: The Murder of Mary Phagan and the Lynching of Leo Frank.” is an excellent and thorough resource.

BECOME A PATRON with monthly donations!
www.patreon.com/sarolynch

WHERE ELSE YOU CAN FIND ME
TikTok: songspeaksaro
Instagram: @songspeaksaro
Website: https://www.sarosings.com/​​
Facebook:   / sarosings​​  

CREDITS
Writer and Producer: Saro Lynch-Thomason
Editor: Ben Fink

LYRICS
Many versions of this song have been documented, but the lyrics below come from Rosa Lee Carson’s 1925 recording. I have put an asterisk next to lines in which I have had to guess the lyrics. Listen to the full version:    • Fiddlin' John Carson-Little Mary Phagan  

Little Mary Phagan, She went to town one day
She went to the pencil factory, To get her little pay

She left her home at eleven, When she kissed her mother goodbye
Not one time did the poor child think, She was going there to die

Leo Frank met her, With a brutely heart we know
He smiled and said, “Little Mary, Now you’ll go home no more.”

He sneaked along behind her, Til she reached the metal-room;
He laughed and said, “Little Mary, You have met your fatal doom.”

She fell upon her knees, To Leo Frank she plead;
Because she was virtuous, He hit her across the head.

Tears flow down her rosy cheeks, The blood flooded down her back;
Remembered telling her mother, What time she would be back.

He killed little Mary Phagan, It was on one holiday;
And called for old Jim Conley, To take her body away.

He took her to the basement, Bound hand and feet;
Down in the basement, Little Mary lay asleep.

Newtly was the watchman, When he went to wind the key;
Down in the basement, Little Mary he could see.

He called for the officers, The names I do not know;
They came to the pencil-factory, Saying, “Newtley, you must go.”

They took him to the jail-house, Locked him in a cell;
The poor old innocent n*****, Knew nothing for to tell.

I have a notion in my head, When Frank comes to die;
He took examination, In a court-house in the sky

The astonished ask the question, The angels they did say
“Why’d you kill little Mary; Upon one holiday?”

Come, all of you good people, Wherever you may be
Supposing little Mary, Belonged to you or me.

Her mother sits a weeping, She weeps and mourns all day;
She prays to meet her baby, In a better world someday.

Judge Roan passed the sentence, You bet he passed it well;
Solicitor Hugh M. Dorsey, Sent Leo Frank to [hell].

PHOTOS, SOUNDS, MUSIC
Confederate flag photo by Saul Loeb
“Cinematic Boom” by justkiddink (freesound.org)
“Bell Counter, A” by InspectorJ (freesound.org)
“Violin/fiddle lick” by bart.osek
“Crows” by ken788