I was disappointed that this song really is not about coffee, but it has an interesting, catchy tune, so I thought I'd post it anyway:


COFFEE POT BLUES
As recorded by Papa Charlie Jackson, 1925.

You can always tell, when your good gal don't want to be seen,
'Cause your meals ain't ready; the house is never clean.

It's like huntin' for a needle buried in a bed of sand,
That is to find a woman hasn't got no man.

Three barrels of your whiskey, mama, four barrels of gin.
She said, "The head-knocker's home, daddy, and you can't come in."

It was early one morning, just at the close of four
When Charlie Smith knocked on Evelyn's door.

She jumped up, sweet babe, tipped on across the floor,
Hollerin', "Long tall daddy, don't you knock no more."

It was in the loving kitchen, where they made the plot
For to poison her father and her mother in the coffee pot.

Then they carried the remains, throwed it out in the yard,
Killed fifteen chickens and wound that prattlin' dog.

Policeman says to Freddie: "What do you know 'bout this?"
Say, "I guess you'd have to go arrest poor Charlie Smith."

Then they carried poor Charlie, put him behind the bar[s],
Give him thirty-nine days, mama, and that ain't all.

Poor Evelyn's in jail, with her back turned to the wall,
Hollerin', "Cruel kind daddy, you know you the cause [of] it all."

I want [to] sing this time; ain't gonna sing no more
'Cause my throat got dry, to where my tonsil's sore.


[As a murder ballad, or even an attempted-murder ballad, this song has a lot of plot holes. Who was Evelyn with when Charlie knocked on her door? What does this have to do with the plot to kill Evelyn's mother and father? How was the plot thwarted? Who was Freddie? Thirty-nine days seems like an awfully short sentence for murder or attempted murder. Why did that happen?

[By the way, I searched in vain for a true story this might have been based on.]