Goodbye Julie
(Julie Anne Johnson)
Primer Level, A
What a surprise! This innocent children’s song from Ruth Crawford Seeger’s American Folk Songs for Children seems to have originated from the hard physical labor of a work song. Compare the words and tune of “Goodbye, Julie” to Leadbelly’s rendition of “Julianne Johnson.” They are very similar, but for one thing: some of the rests in “Goodbye, Julie” were originally grunts from workers using sledgehammers, clearly audible in Leadbelly’s version.
