Add: Fixing To Die (Booker TW White)

Subject: Lyric: Fixing To Die
From: CraigS
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 04:15 PM

Here's a lyric I've just noted down - hope someone wants it!

Fixing To Die                   Booker TW White

I'm looking forward in my eyes and I believe I'm fixing to die
I know I was born to die but I hate to leave my children crying

Just as sure as we live, let's be sure we's born to die
I know I was born to die but I hate to leave my children crying

Your mother treated me, children, like I was her baby child
That's why I tried so hard to come back home to die

So many nights at the fireside, how my children's mother would cry
'Cause I told the mother I had to say goodbye

Look over yonder on the burying ground
Yonder stands ten thousand and it's there I'm laying me down

Mother take my children back before they let me down
Iain't no need of them screaming and crying on the graveyard ground

Subject: RE: ADD Lyric: Fixing To Die
From: GUEST,truckerdave
Date: 08 Dec 02 - 06:50 PM

Uh, that's fine but the lyrics aren't exactly right. I could be wrong though(see "copperhead road" post) I'm familiar with this song and i play it, a version of parchman farm, and jitterbug swing. I live right around where booker was originally from so it's my tribute to the old man, for folks who may have never heard of him. By the way, he was an expert bulls**ter, in my opinion. Doesn't detract from his music though. I've got an audio interview with him made locally in 1976, he is hard to understand if you're not used to hearing old country guys talk. I have always wondered if that was his last public performance? Not many people seem to know about it since he had a stroke shortly after in July of that year on his way to Massachusetts and flew home in a wheelchair. Died not too long after. Hope you don't get mad but i corrected them.

Fixing To Die                   Booker TW White

I'm looking funny in my eyes and I believe I'm fixing to die
I know I was born to die but I hate to leave my children crying

Just as sure as we live, sure we's born to die
I know I was born to die but I hate to leave my children crying

Your mother treated me, children, like I was her baby child
That's why I tried so hard to come back home to die

So many nights at the fireside, how my children's mother would cry
'Cause I told they mother I had to say goodbye

Look over yonder on the burying ground
Yonder stands ten thousand waitin to let me down

Mother lead my children away fore they let me down
ain't no need of them screaming and crying on the graveyard ground

Subject: RE: ADD Lyric: Fixing To Die
From: Barry Finn
Date: 09 Dec 02 - 01:48 AM

The version I love most is the one Dave Van Ronk recorded back in the late 60's. I don't know where he got it from (haven't had that LP in decades) but it was a bit different. I think it went something like:


Your mother treated me children, like a new born baby, like a new born baby child

Your mother treated me, children like a new born baby child

That's why I tried so hard to come back home to die.


Hard to tell weither I liked the version he did so much or just the way he did it. I know that when I saw the words posted above the tune just came back from out of nowhere. Great song. Barry

Subject: Lyr Add: FIXING TO DIE (Booker T W White )
From: CraigS
Date: 09 Dec 02 - 04:08 PM

Thanks for the comments - I've listened again and I reckon this is the definitive version - the first line of the second verse is very hard to be sure about, though.


Fixing To Die                   Booker TW White

I'm looking funny in my eyes and I believe I'm fixing to die
I know I was born to die but I hate to leave my children crying

Just as sure as we live, let's be sure we's born to die
I know I was born to die but I hate to leave my children crying

Your mother treated me, children, like I was her baby child
That's why I tried so hard to come back home to die

So many nights at the fireside, how my children's mother would cry
'Cause I told the mother I had to say goodbye

Look over yonder on the burying ground
Yonder stands ten thousand and it's there I'm letting me down

Mother take my children back before they let me down
I ain't no need of them screaming and crying on the graveyard ground

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Fixing To Die
From: Stewie
Date: 09 Dec 02 - 08:02 PM

On the recording that I have (Vo 05588 - Chicago 1940, reissued Catfish KATCD-106), I reckon he is singing the stanza in question as follows:

Just as sure as we live, it is sure we's born to die
Sure we's born to die
Just as sure as we live, sure we's born to die
I know I was born to die but I hate to leave my children cryin'

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Lyr Add: Fixing To Die
From: CraigS
Date: 10 Dec 02 - 06:46 PM

Could be you're right, Stewie - on the recording I'm working from it could be either - you can just tell there's a contracted phrase in there. There are difficulties in knowing if we're listening to the same recording. In those days it was common to use more than one master - it was too expensive to prepare a mother for a race record, the recording people didn't understand the idiom and were unsure of the sales potential, so they'd make a stamper from the best take, and if it sold well and the stamper wore out they'd make another stamper from the second take. Then there's the considerations that come from the transcription process, ie. how clean the transcription is. If someone swears blind that he's got a version with entirely different words, it's probably because the stamper wore out and the record people got the singer to re-record at a later date. Recent examples are live versions of "Friend of the Devil" by the Grateful Dead, and "Johnny B Goode" by Chuck Berry (if one more person comes up to me after a gig and tells me it's "rock and roll band" not "big rock band" I will have to sing Murdering Blues forever).