[Warning: derogatory racial terms. Presented as music history.]
From the Williams and Walker musical “Abyssinia”, 1906
words by Alex Rogers
music by Bert A. Williams
The sheet music:
Lyrics
1. I won some coin some time ago in the Louisana Lottery
I bought five hundred suits of clothes and went the world to see
The first place that I landed was in London, o’er the way
Where I changed my clothes so much they called me “Lightning Rastus J”
But the thing that worried them was my nationality
So I wrote these lines to sing to them when they would question me
Chorus
I’m just plain Rastus Johnson from U. S. A.
I’m traveling ’round to see the sights and throw some coin away
I don’t know my ancestor-ree, I’se just born in Tennessee
Thank you, just Rastus Johnson from U. S. A.
2. From London I just thought I’d take a run to dear old Paris, gay
To buy more wine and see more, sights and throw more coin away
But tell you all the truth, Folks, Paris ain’t no hit with me
Cause all you get on every hand is “Wee Monsieur, Wee Wee”
A man once said to me, says he, “You is coon, African”
So I fairly screamed, screamed I, “No, Sir, I’ll have you understand”
Sung here by Fred Feild: