“S’cuse Me While I Kiss This Guy”
Blues Lyrics Untangled
You didn’t grow up in the Mississippi Delta during the 1940’s. No you didn’t. Shut up. More like the suburbs, with a Schwinn Sting Ray, and a crush on Farrah.
You are forgiven, therefore, for not catching every nuance of lyric springing from Field Hollers and the Jim Crow South. I’m a little too much into this stuff, so I think I can help.
That Eleven-Light City, Sweet Home Chicago
Believe it or not, that’s sort-of correct.
 |
| NOT ROBERT JOHNSON |
This one’s a mess. In 1927 Kokomo Arnold...
...sang “Eleven-Light City, Sweet Home Kokomo”. In 1937, Robert Johnson’s composition actually contains more references to California than to Chicago. In fact, it may have, as it turns out, nothing to do with the Windy City (stay with me). But Chi-Town has anthemized it. Anthems are no place for lyrical ambiguity. The original lyrics are tricky and mysterious, and, therefore, their use is eroding.
If your world began in the 80s, you will be confused to hear RJ sing, over and over, “back to the land of California, to my sweet home Chicago” and in the third verse, “I’m going to California, from there to Des Moines, Iowa.
So what gives?
Dispensing with the harebrained theory that he didn’t know California from Illinois (he did), we have left some tantalizing possibilities.
Was the recitation of these various locales an imagined paradise (to oppressed black southerners) all lumped into one?
Was Johnson, the lyricist, assuming the role of a bullshitting Romeo, trying to pressure his girlfriend into a clearly fictitious road trip?
Was he pronouncing “through” as “troo”? That would be a pretty Chicago-ey thing. Like Joe Pesci in “Casino”.
Or, my favorite, (tympani roll), was he was talking about Port Chicago, California, where Johnson had relatives? I like it! Chicagoans won't, though.
John the Conqueror
An African folk hero, a legendary enslaved prince, JTC has a hallucinogenic root named after him .
Willie Dixon preferred the wording “John the Conqueror Root”. Dixon used this in at least three songs; most famously in “Hoochie Coochie Man”. Bo Diddley, on the other hand, went with “John the Conkeroo” in the barroom staple “I’m a Man”.
In his great boogie, “Who Do You Love?”, the question is not: “Why isn’t it the more correct ‘WHOM’ do you love?”, but, rather, “WHO THE HECK IS ARLENE?!?”
Let’s look at some numbers:
She took him by the hand, she took him for a walk, but she shouldn’t give him no lip.
We still don’t know who Arlene was. You know who else probably wanted to know who she was? Bo’s WIFE, Ethel Smith.
Ethel, by the way, was credited with co-writing “Love is Strange”, with Mickey and Sylvia
She didn’t, really, but royalty contracts are peculiar things.
Wang Dang Doodle
Willie Dixon wrote it, Koko Taylor sang it, with a young Buddy Guy on guitar, and it ran up to #4 on the charts in 1966
Every suburban blues band in America sings it. If I ever once hear the groove and lyrics done right by a cover band, they’ll have to give me smelling salts.
The song has the simplest of premises: we’re having a big blow-out, replete with fish scent and snuff juice. But it’s the colorful cast of likely attendees which causes all the lyrical mishaps.
First off, if I get any say in this, do not UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES invite Butcher-Knife-Totin’ Annie. She makes me very uncomfortable .
Kudu-Crawlin Red? All I could find was this picture of a critter called a Kudu.
But the name no one, NO ONE, has ever gotten right? Abyssinian Ned. Now you know. You’re welcome.
Got my Mojo Workin’
Somewhere along the line, a terrific live recording of Muddy Waters singing Preston Foster’s 1956 voodoo chant became THE version. Lost to history’s dustbin are Foster’s original references to Black Cat Bones all pure and dry, nor Four Leafed Clovers all hangin’ high. But... you will NEVER see a cover band do this one without including Muddy’s Yosemite Sam-like BRRBRRBRRBRRBRRBRR. The other detail worth examining is the line “Goin’ down to Louisiana, get me a mojo hand* Gonna have all you women...”
What?
As a kid, I went with “Gonna have all you women retching like a man.” Hey, I was young. And high. I now believe it’s “Gonna have all you women right here at my command” with “right here” pronounced like “ryche eer”. Hey, he was from Mississippi. And, regrettably, he changed the original “I’ve got some red hot tips keeping here on ice” to “whole lotta tricks... on ice”. I pray I’m never in a band that works this up, but if we do, we’re going with “hot tips”. I just hate bands that think they’re this
but are really this.
What lyrics have you scratched your head over? Leave ‘em in the comments. I’d like to make fun of you.
* Mojo hand: A detached, deformed hand, or a piece of dried monkey. I don’t make up the news, I just report it.
