Lyr Req: Take Out Some Insurance on Me (Jimmy Reed

Subject: Take Out some Insurance On Me - Jimmy Reed
From: JimFire
Date: 21 Apr 99 - 10:52 AM

Am looking for the lyrics to this Jimmy Reed Song. Would also like chords if you have them.

Subject: RE: Take Out some Insurance On Me - Jimmy Reed
From: Paul
Date: 21 Apr 99 - 09:16 PM

If you leave me baby
And say you won't be back
That would be the end of me
'Cause I'd have a heart attack

CHORUS:
You'd better get some insurance on me baby
Take out some insurance on me baby
'Cause if you ever ever say goodbye
I'm gonna haul right off and die

Darling I will love you
As long as I got breath
If we should part I know sweetheart
It would worry me to death
(chorus)

You know I love you baby
Like I love myself
I couldn't live if you should give
All your love to someone else
(chorus)



I haven't heard it in a long time, but I'm pretty sure that's it. It's a typical three-chord song, but not in Jimmy's usual 12-bar pattern. As with all of his songs, it's either in the key of E or A (I think he only owned an A harmonica). This song is on almost every Greatest Hits album of his.

Subject: RE: Take Out some Insurance On Me - Jimmy Reed
From: Jon W.
Date: 22 Apr 99 - 11:10 AM

I have played it (one of the few songs I have actually played) in the the key of E. The chief feature is a quick change to an A chord on the fourth beat of the measure when playing the first two or three of the 4 measures of E in the first line. The chorus starts at the second line - two measures of A and two of E, one B, one A, then pause on E for a measure, then back to B to finish the turnaround.

There is also a bridge between the second and third verses, which Paul omitted. I play the bridge modulated up to an A chord (as I believe Jimmy did also). Here it is with chord changes in parentheses:

Don't (A) get no sick, or accident,
Cause I'm healthy as can (E) be.
But if you (A) had any sense, you'd take a pen
and write a (B) bill up...On (E) me.

Note that the blues shuffle rhythm in this song and most of Jimmy Reed's songs consists of a measure of E-E6-E7-E6 or A-A6-A7-A6, one beat each chord, with each beat divided into two notes, the first being slightly longer than the second. It's not exactly a dotted eighth and a sixteenth, it's lazier than that.

Subject: RE: Take Out some Insurance On Me - Jimmy Reed
From: Peter T.
Date: 22 Apr 99 - 12:15 PM

You might be interested to know that the Beatles did a version of this on one of the recent re-releases of their early stuff.

Yours, Peter T.

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Take Out Some Insurance on Me (Jimmy Reed
From: GUEST
Date: 12 Oct 21 - 07:43 PM

There's more to this but I can't really understand him so I can't post it. lol The bridge goes: ??? sick, no accident 'cuz I'm healthy as can be. ???? Last verse: You don't know me baby, like I know myself, I couldn't live if you should give all your love to someone else. And then the last chorus. :)

Subject: RE: Lyr Req: Take Out Some Insurance on Me (Jimmy Reed
From: GUEST,keberoxu
Date: 12 Oct 21 - 09:06 PM

I know that I have heard a live recording of a performance
by the late lamented Peter Green, playing guitar and singing,
probably with Nigel Watson's Splinter Group
in recent years.

If I can discover more about the CD album,
that's what it would have been, that has
Take Out Some Insurance on it,
then I will pass it on to this thread in a future post.