////Thing is, would either of you sing those words to a room with black audience members inches away from you in the front row? Would you not feel a tiny bit self-concious singing "black girl, black girl, don' lie to me" to a black girl? (You should!) I'd put money on you either not singing those particular songs or changing a lyric. Even if you thought it was fine in principal, I bet you'd wimp out in practice.////

Don't put money on it or you've lost it already. I don't sing any other version but "Black Girl" and, yes, I have sang it that way in front of black people and, no, I don't feel self-conscious about it. I also sing "Black Betty" which I use as an a capella interlude for Hooker's "Roll and Roll" and, again, have done this many times in front of black patrons and listeners. One time I broke into "Black Betty" and a young black woman standing on the corner with her daughter began to bob up and down to it in a way that told me she knew the song well.

Also my version of "Black Girl" does not turn her into a whore as some versions do--she sleeps around and men give her new clothes. I have the narrator asking where she gets the new clothes and she replies that her husband left them for her in the pines overnight. Then the narrator tells us that her husband had been dead a year. Then he demands one last time, "Where did you last night??" but she just gives the same answer: "In the pines where I shivered the whole night through" then I end it with a poignant guitar solo so there is no doubt that she is telling the truth. In other words, I turn the song into a ghost story.