diff --git a/gertty/search/tokenizer.py b/gertty/search/tokenizer.py
index 88573db..6f6a415 100644
--- a/gertty/search/tokenizer.py
+++ b/gertty/search/tokenizer.py
@@ -82,12 +82,16 @@ def SearchTokenizer():
 
     def t_SSTRING(t):
         r"'([^\\']+|\\'|\\\\)*'"
-        t.value=t.value[1:-1].decode("string-escape")
+        t.value = t.value[1:-1]
+        if not isinstance(t.value, six.text_type):
+            t.value = t.value.decode('string-escape')
         return t
 
     def t_DSTRING(t):
         r'"([^\\"]+|\\"|\\\\)*"'
-        t.value=t.value[1:-1].decode("string-escape")
+        t.value = t.value[1:-1]
+        if not isinstance(t.value, six.text_type):
+            t.value = t.value.decode('string-escape')
         return t
 
     def t_AND(t):