Catherine, "rider" is sexual. It is a lover, and not a faithful one. An "easy rider" proverbially "rode from town to town," so it also has connotations of catching a freight (or, earlier, a horse, like a circuit rider. In connection with that, a "stone pony" is another sexual term.

A "rider" is primarily a man who goes from woman to woman, like the silver dollar in the '20s song. A woman "rider" goes from man to man, or is suspected of doing so -- as in C.C. (or Easy) Rider. "Riding" is sex too, but I think there's a wider connotation of a person who is thoroughly at home with the opposite sex, a hottie in modern terms, someone magnetic and available whom anybody might make a play for.

Q, I think the reason "I Know You Rider" is a tough song to trace is that it really only exists in the Lomax version, in mine, and in the various versions that stem from mine. I have found no others, and believe me, I have heard nearly all of the blues issued on record, and seen nearly all of the blues printed by folk song collectors as found c. 1900-1940, and believe me if I had spotted a relative, I would have noticed.

I think we ought to be wary of linking blues that are quite separate just because they happen to share a line or a verse. Just listen to Blind Lemon, Papa Charlie Jackson, Blind Blake, Peg Leg Howell, Barbecue Bob or some of the other prolific bluesmen of the 1920s and you will hear a scad of verses shared and traded in and out of songs that are otherwise quite distinct -- not to mention the great blueswomen like Bessie, Ma and so on, who did the same. Blues verses were a vast pool from which singers recomposed to create individual songs ... a lot like southern mountain fiddle and banjo songs.

Please don't think I'm trying to shut the door on other variants! I just can't find hide nor hair of them in the record.

As it happens, I have the books you mention, and I'm referring to them now.

First, we should remember that "I Know You Rider" as originally collected was ONLY the verse (I went back to Lomax to be sure I give it exactly in the words printed there),

I know you rider, gonna miss me when I'm gone, (2)
Gonna miss your li'l mama, baby, f'um rollin' in yo' arms.

Lomax's added-on verses seem mostly without antecedents I know of, except for "Sun's gonna shine" and a couple I didn't use, like "Take me back, baby." "I laid down last night" is common enough, but usually differs from there on.   For example:

I laid down last night, turnin' from side to side,
I was not sick, I was just dissatisfied.

My guess is that the Lomaxes, who collected scads of blues verses and fragments in addition to distinct songs, put unusual or unique verses here that hadn't fit anywhere else. They commonly did this kind of assembly work in "floating verse" songs, which is how we get our canonical versions of things like "Cindy" and "Old Joe Clarke" as well as various field hollers and blues.

As to the other references, here goes.

Brown: I think the reference must be to Vol III, Folk Songs, p 563, When A Man Gets the Blues. One verse only. No tune provided in Vol IV, "The Music of the Folk Songs."

Oh! when a man get the blues
He boards a train and rides,
Oh! when a woman gets the blues,
She ducks her head and cries.

Sandburg: I've addressed Sandburg's "Woman Blue" (which contains that verse) in Q's separate thread "WOMAN BLUE"

Lomax: addressed above.

Silber. Folksinger's Wordbook: That is exactly, word for word, my earliest version under my title, the version I sang as of 1959 and in about 1960-61 slightly altered to the one quoted above. It is therefore the one that Edwards and Kelley got from me in summer 1959, and I suspect Silber used it more or less whole from the Coffee House Songbook, though I have not seen the latter.

In general, I think I'd like to turn over to the rest of you the task of plowing deeper and deeper trying to find other versions. Any results, please let me know!

I too would like to know the antecedents of some of the Lomax verses. But I think the lesson we keep learning as we play song detective is that the unnamed murderess's first verse was unique to her. That's the song's soul.

As for the other verses, except for antecedents as noted, I haven't had much luck finding them elsewhere.

I guess the only thing left to state is that I was indeed the one who retitled the song, as well as revising and arranging it.

Oh yeah, and just in case of any misunderstanding regarding Bill Briggs re this song. All honor to the great Brigger, who taught me much, whose music I love... But as he would tell you himself, he was not the co-composer, as may have been implied above.

He learned "I Know You Rider" from me, just as I learned many songs from him, including his signature tunes like "Horse Named Bill." the wonderful "Willie's Rare," and "Cuckoo Yodel." To the best of my knowledge (dating back a few years I admit), Brigger still lives in Jackson, Wyoming. If you want to check it out with him, please do; and tell him hello from me.

Bob