Wynona Merceris Carr was born in Cleveland, Ohio, where she started out as a gospel singer, forming her own five-piece group The Carr Singers around 1945 and touring the Cleveland/Detroit area. Being tipped by The Pilgrim Travelers, who shared a bill with Carr in the late 1940s, Art Rupe signed her to his Specialty label, giving Carr her new stage name “Sister” Wynona Carr (modelled after pioneering gospel singer Sister Rosetta Tharpe) and cutting some twenty sides with her from 1949 to 1954, including a couple of duets with Specialty’s biggest gospel star at the time, Brother Joe May.
Not having too much success on the charts (except for “The Ball Game” (1952), which became one of Specialty’s best selling gospel records), Carr grew increasingly unhappy with the straight gospel direction of her career and pleaded with Rupe to let her record “pops, jumps, ballads, and semi-blues”. Rupe relented and from 1955 to 1959 Carr recorded two dozen rock & roll and R&B sides for Specialty, which, like her gospel songs, she mostly wrote herself. Despite scoring an R&B hit with “Should I Ever Love Again?” in 1957, overall the change from spiritual to secular music didn’t help Carr much in terms of sales or recognition. Unfortunately she also contracted tuberculosis around this time, which kept her from doing the necessary promotional work and touring for two years, effectively ending her tenure with Specialty in the summer of 1959.
In 1961 Carr signed with Frank Sinatra’s Reprise Records and released an unsuccessful pop album. She moved back to Cleveland, sinking into obscurity and suffering from declining health and depression; she died there in 1976.
Carr’s contralto vocals have a sensual, husky quality quite unusual (or even inappropriate) for gospel singers in her day, which made her eventual switch to R&B and rock & roll seem a logical choice in retrospect. The same goes for her idiosyncratic use of metaphors and themes in her gospel songs: Baseball (“The Ball Game”), boxing (“15 Rounds For Jesus”) and a popular TV show (“Dragnet For Jesus”). This penchant for novelty-like songs also shows in Carr’s later R&B repertoire, for instance “Ding Dong Daddy”, “Nursery Rhyme Rock” and “Boppity Bop (Boogity Boog)”.
Carr’s gospel recordings are very much influenced by Sister Rosetta Tharpe, incorporating blues and jazz stylings and already touching on R&B with her take on Roy Brown’s / Wynonie Harris’ “Good Rockin’ Tonight”, entitled “I Heard The News (Jesus Is Coming Again)”. Her early R&B material (for which she is probably best remembered now) was often uptempo, rock & roll-styled and similar in sound to fellow R&B / rock & roll artists on the Specialty roster like Little Richard, Lloyd Price and Larry Williams, with a strong New Orleans-style backbeat and a rich, warm production. Her final Specialty sessions, conducted by Sonny Bono in 1959, cut down on the rock & roll influences.
Both Carr’s gospel and R&B recordings went largely unappreciated during the time they were released, but found a new audience when Specialty Records released two CDs, covering Carr’s entire output on the label and adding previously unreleased material, such as a recording with Rev. C.L. Franklin (father of Aretha Franklin) and his New Bethel Baptist Church Choir in Detroit.
Sister Wynona Carr
Dragnet For Jesus (Specialty SPCD-7016-2, 1992)
Wynona Carr
Jump Jack Jump! (Specialty SPCD-7048-2, 1993)
Finders Keepers
Wynona Carr Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
I won′t weep and I won't moan
′Cause I found you and your love so true
And I'm keeping you for my own
Heads I win or tails I lose
I bet my heart to win your love
The day you kissed me, good luck was with me
And I thank my lucky stars above
I only play for keeps and I′m keeping all the love I won
Finders, keepers, losers, weepers
The loser has to pay the score
He lost you and I found you
And I′m keeping you for ever more
I'm not the kind to play for fun
I only play for keeps and I′m keeping all the love I won
Finders, keepers, losers, weepers
The loser has to pay the score
He lost you and I found you
And I'm keeping you for ever more
He lost you and I found you
And I′m keeping you for ever more
Yeah he lost you and I found you
And I'm keeping you for ever more
He lost you and I found you
And I′m keeping you for ever more
The lyrics of Wynona Carr's song Finders Keepers are centered around the idea that love should not be treated like a game, where you can simply move on to the next player if you happen to lose. The phrase "Finders keepers, losers weepers" can be quite commonly used when it comes to children fighting over toys, but in this song, it takes on a much deeper meaning. Wynona Carr sings that now that she has found true love, she won't weep or moan because she's keeping it for her own. She declares that she doesn't play for fun but plays for keeps and will hold onto all the love that she has won.
The lyrics also include a sense of gratitude and luck, that her heart won in the game of love when the person she loves chose her. Wynona sings that the day she was kissed, good luck was with her, and she thanks her lucky stars above. It's quite clear that she is determined to keep the love she has won and emphasizes that the loser has to pay the score. She found the person, whereas someone else lost them, and now she will keep them forever more.
Overall, the song emphasizes the importance of recognizing the value of love and relationships, and treating them with respect and sincerity, rather than playing around with them like a game.
Line by Line Meaning
Finders, keepers, losers, weepers
I am keeping you because I found you, and whoever lost you can weep because I am not giving you back.
I won′t weep and I won't moan
I will not cry or fuss over anything because I have found true love and I am content.
′Cause I found you and your love so true
I am content because I have found you and your love is genuine and pure.
And I'm keeping you for my own
I am not giving you away to anyone, I am keeping you for myself.
Heads I win or tails I lose
Regardless of what happens, I am still in love with you and I will do whatever it takes to keep you.
I bet my heart to win your love
I gave my heart to you in order to gain your love and affection.
The day you kissed me, good luck was with me
I considered myself lucky when you first kissed me, as it was the beginning of our loving relationship.
And I thank my lucky stars above
I am grateful to have found such a wonderful romantic partner, and I thank the universe for bringing us together.
I'm not the kind to play for fun
I am not the type who simply plays games with love, I am taking this relationship seriously.
I only play for keeps and I′m keeping all the love I won
I plan to hold onto this love for as long as I can, because I won this love fair and square and I am going to keep it.
The loser has to pay the score
Whoever may have lost you, they are the one who will suffer the loss and I will be the one who gains the love and affection that you have to offer.
And I′m keeping you for ever more
I am holding onto you for eternity, as I do not plan to let go of you any time soon.
He lost you and I found you
The person who lost you gave me the opportunity to find and keep you for myself.
And I'm keeping you for ever more
I plan on holding onto you for the rest of my life, because I love you that much.
Yeah he lost you and I found you
I took advantage of the opportunity to capitalize on the situation and keep you for myself.
And I'm keeping you for ever more
I know the value of true love, and I plan to hold onto you for the rest of my days because I have found genuine love in you.
Writer(s): Wynona Carr
Contributed by Adalyn V. Suggest a correction in the comments below.