Goodbye, Susan Jane

DESCRIPTION: Susan Jane tells the singer that she is in love with Rufus Andrew Jackson Payne. He asks "give me back my love again." She says "I cannot love [you] again." She is "so deceiving" he "threatened twice to leave her" and now he must. Now he thinks her ugly.
AUTHOR: Will S Hayes
EARLIEST DATE: 1874 (broadside, LOCSheet sm1874 03345)
KEYWORDS: love infidelity rejection humorous playparty
FOUND IN: Canada(Ont) US(So)
REFERENCES (5 citations):
Fowke-TraditionalSingersAndSongsFromOntario 62, "Goodbye, Susan Jane" (1 text, 1 tune)
Owens-TexasFolkSongs-1ed, pp. 241-243, "Miss Susan Jane" (1 text, 1 tune)
Randolph 435, "Liza Jane" (2 texts plus a fragment, 1 tune; the "B" text is this, "A" is "Liza Jane," and "C" is too short to clearly identify)
Browne-AlabamaFolkLyric 86, "Good-bye, Susan Jane" (1 text, 1 tune)
JournalOfAmericanFolklore, Goldy M. Hamilton, "The Play-Party in Northeast Missouri," Vol. XXVII, No. 105 (Jul-Sep 1914), #5 pp. 291-292 "Susan Jane" (1 text)
Roud #2328
BROADSIDES:
LOCSheet, sm1874 03345, "Susan Jane" ("I went to see my Susan"), J.L. Peters (New York), 1874 (1 text, 1 tune)
NOTES [116 words]: Fowke-TraditionalSingersAndSongsFromOntario: Vance Randolph reports it from Missouri, giving it as a variant of 'Liza Jane,' but textually it seems to be a separate song."
See Mrs L D Ames, "The Missouri Play-Party" in The Journal of American Folklore, Vol. XXIV, No. 93 (Jul-Sep 1911 (available online by JSTOR)), pp. 299-300 "Oh, Ain't I Gone" (1 text, 1 tune) for a song that shares only one line in its chorus - "So good-by, Susan Jane! - with this song but is otherwise a collection of floating verses not in Fowke-TraditionalSingersAndSongsFromOntario or Hamilton. - BS
I suspect that this began as some sort of popular comic song, but I will admit that I haven't found the original. - RBW
Last updated in version 5.3
File: FowOn062

Go to the Ballad Search form
Go to the Ballad Index Song List

Go to the Ballad Index Instructions
Go to the Ballad Index Bibliography or Discography