Best BLUES lines

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Troll
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 07:39 AM

Goin' up the country, goin' to my childhood home (2X)
Been a long time comin' but I'm gonna be a long time gone.

Well, since you left me baby, I've had some time to myself.
Yeah, since you left me baby, I ain't even tried to find somebody else.
When you told me you was leavin', it almost came as good news.
I've sat down and thought it over. I think i'm better off with the blues.
Now that is some kind of bad woman. I don't know who did this song but it sounds very Chicago-ish. I heard it on the radio and this is all I can remember. I'd like the complete lyrics if anyone has them.
If no response here, I'll start a lyric thread.

troll

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Steve Latimer
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 06:48 AM

Mudlark,

That's from Muddy Waters' "Long Distance Call" the next line is a beauty. "Picked up the receiver, the caller said 'another mule's kickin' in your stall".

It occurred to me the other night when I was at Rick Fieldings "O' Brother" tribute night, where would Blues & Bluegrass music be if "bail" didn't rhyme with "jail"?

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 02:33 AM

p.s.---That Tampa Red 2-cd set rocks. :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Lepus Rex
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 02:30 AM

Hah! I see this thread, open it up, thinking I'm going to add "I'll kill your soul and dare your spirit to move" to the list. And it's the first song in the first post. Damn! Now I've got to think about it... :)

---Lepus Rex

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Mudlark
Date: 13 Dec 01 - 01:57 AM

Don't know what this is from...it was sort of spoken....."Telephone ringin'......sounds like a long DIStance call..."

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Bobert
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 06:57 PM

Brian,

Dylan must have been paying attention to your song because in his "She Belongs to Me" (approx. 1965) he wrote:

She never stumbles, she's got no place to fall She never stumbles, she's got no place to fall She's nobodys' child, the law can't touch her at all

As for a few of my favorite lines:

"I'm so evil, my shadow won't even follow me"

And of course Johnny Winter in TV Blues, "If you don't get the picture, I'm going to have to do so work on you."

And someone posted a Paul Siebel line from "Louise" I epecially like his last verses to "Legend of the Captain's Daughter"..."time is now and will be long ago" and his "Jasper"..."last time I saw Jasper, he was running down the road, with his botts on backwards just in case it snowed"

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: ddw
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 06:12 PM

Jock,

The first one is from Duncan And Brady (sometimes called Duncan's 'Lectric Car or King Brady). Not absolutely sure who the original tune was by, but (somebody correct me if my memory's faulty) I seem to remember it as a good 12-string piece done by either Leadbelly or Blind Willie McTell — more likely the former....

Hoyt Axton covered it well.

LEJ. Fully agree. Sometimes I think if you learned about 15 verses you could do 80 per cent of the blues tunes out there....

I think the magic is in how the music can make the words sound so good over and over. —— On second reading, that seems to be about the same thing you said, isn't it?

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 04:21 PM

When the women all heard that King Brady was dead
They went on home an' they dressed in red,
Came a-slippin' an' a-slidin' up an' down the street,
In their loose Mother Hubbards an' their stockin' feet Don't know what it's called or who wrote it, nor yet any more of the words, but it's on a Brothers Four album.

If it wasn't for bad luck, wouldn't have no luck at all. Clapton & others
Failte.....Jock

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: GUEST,Jenny the T
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 03:44 PM

Big boss man, can't you hear me when I call? Well you ain't so big--you just tall, that's all.

(don't know the original author; it's been covered many times)

JtT

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 12:29 PM

ddw...sometimes I wonder who invented these lines anyway. Jimmy Page stole it from Muddy, who stole it from Robert, who stole it from Son, who probably stole it from Blind Lemon, who probably stole it from somebody sitting on his porch playing a diddley bow. This stuff somehow has the strength of archetypal imagery, which is the magical thing about traditional music.

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: LR Mole
Date: 12 Dec 01 - 11:27 AM

I'm gonna stop my cryin', and leave you alone
You don't believe I'm leavin, YOU CAN COUNT THE DAYS I"M GONE..
"Milkcow Blues Boogie"

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: ddw
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 08:12 PM

Jim Dixon,

Thanks for posting that info about Tampa Red's 2CD set — it's one I'll definitely hunt down. I was just reading through your selection of great lines and realized you didn't post one of my favorites of his:

Copper brought her in, she didn't need no bail
She shook it for the judge and put the cop in jail

From "No Matter How She Done It."

Great song!

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: ddw
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 08:08 PM

LEJ,

the words you posted above,

On the seventh hour Of the seventh day Of the seventh month The seventh Doctor say "He was born for luck" Woman can't you see I got seven hundred dollars Baby Don't you mess with me...

and attributed as being from Mannish Boy by Muddy Waters are also to be found, verbatim, in Willie Dixon's Hootchie Kootchie Man. Wonder which came first?

Not that it really matters, mind you, since blues tunes swap lyrics back and forth all the time and Willie did play bass in Muddy's band for a long time. Just a point of curiosity....

david

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: ddw
Date: 11 Dec 01 - 07:58 PM

kj,

I don't think you'll ever pin down who wrote St. James Infirmary. It's just a varient of The Unfortunate Rake and Streets of Loredo with the scene shifted to a Greenville, S.C. VD clinic. Somebody might copyright an arrangement, but I think the song is basically trad.

cheers,

david

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Stewie
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 10:24 PM

Hey Brian, I can't place the artist either. I know it comes from a blues called 'I'm A Stranger Here'. I thought Sonny and Brownie, but their blues of that title is different. Here's what sticks in my mind - maybe it will prompt someone's memory as to who sang it:

Ain't it hard to stumble when you've got no place to fall?
Ain't it hard to stumble when you've got no place to fall?
In this whole wide world I've got no place at all

I'm a stranger here, I'm a stranger everywhere.
I would go home but, honey, I'm a stranger there

Hitch up my buggy, saddle up my black mare
Hitch up my buggy, saddle up my black mare
Goin' to find me a fair deal in this world somewhere

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: GUEST,allie
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 09:18 PM

Why am I thinking of Blind Melon Chitlin?

Own-gong-ging-gong, o-way. -Cheech and Chong

allie

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: ddw
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 08:59 PM

Now don't you criticize the kind of folks who might gather
At my kind of place 'cause nothin' looks sadder
Than a self-rightous soul who falls off his high horse
And winds up stupified at the watering trough

From "My Kind of Place" by Paul Geremia

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: pattyClink
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 05:46 PM

I'd rather drink muddy water, and sleep in a hollow log

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Brian Hoskin
Date: 10 Dec 01 - 12:28 PM

Ain't it hard to stumble when you got no place to fall
I ain't got no place in this world at all.

- that's from memory, and I can't remember who it's from, but I'm sure Stewie can remind me?

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: GUEST,Frogmore
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 01:42 PM

My love is bigger than a Cadillac.

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: GUEST,The Burren Ranger
Date: 09 Dec 01 - 06:47 AM

Blues in A Flat "Well I woke up this mornin' woke up yesterday mornin' too. Well I woke up this mornin' woke up yesterday mornin' too. And if I wake up tommorrow mornin' that'll be three days in a row." (anon)

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: kj...
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 10:43 PM

Oh, when I die, please bury me In my ten dollar Stetson hat; Put a twenty-dollar gold piece on my watch chain So my friends'll know I died standin' pat.

Get six gamblers to carry my coffin Six chorus girls to sing me a song Put a twenty-piece jazz band on my tail gate To raise Hell as we go along

St. James Infirmary of course.....but....who wrote it????

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: GUEST,Alec
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 06:54 PM

My li'll girl was hungry so I bought her a grocery store - Lightning hopkins

Squeese my lemon till the juice runs down my leg- ?

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 06:09 PM

If I had a nickel I'd find a game
If I won a dollar I'd make it rain
If it rained an ocean I'd drink it dry
and lay me down dissatisfied
Rex's Blues Townes Van Zandt

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Arbuthnot
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 05:17 PM

There's a Blind Lemon Jefferson line:

I asked my baby for fifty cents, she said There ain't a John in the yard!

and a Memphis Minnie line:

Iknow you got a cold and you can't smell So I'm going to give you something that I can't sell

There! That should lower the tone a bit!

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 04:47 PM

Well, I ride on a mailtrain, baby,
Can't buy a thrill.
Well, I've been up all night, baby,
Leanin' on the window sill.
Well, if I die
On top of the hill
And if I don't make it,
You know my baby will.

Don't the moon look good, mama,
Shinin' through the trees?
Don't the brakeman look good, mama,
Flagging down the "Double E"?
Don't the sun look good
Goin' down over the sea?
Don't my gal look fine
When she's comin' after me?

Takes a Lot to Laugh, Takes a Train to Cry
Bob Dylan/Warner Bros

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Amos
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 04:43 PM

If you want to (huh)
Please yo' Captain
Dig it deep boy (huh)
And raise it high

Bessie Jones
Road gang chant

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 01:15 PM

You're a good old wagon, Daddy, but you done broke down.

Bessie Smith

Jerry

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: reggie miles
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 12:48 PM

I know a woman, this is what she'll do, she'll make you tall and crazy, then she'll leave you small and blue.
I know a woman, five foot three, all day I try to get her into bed at night with me.
Honey won't you kiss me, tell me that you'll stay, lie down here beside me, till my blues go away.

oops that's me too

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Kaleea
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 03:16 AM

Wow, those are some gooduns. One of my favorites is the late great Louis Armstrong in an early recording singing: Why must I be so black, and so blue?

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: WyoWoman
Date: 08 Dec 01 - 01:16 AM

If I can't sell it, gonna keep sittin' on it, I ain't gonna give this good stuff away ... (Ruth Brown)

I need a little sugar in my bowl (Nina Simone)

Your love done shrunk. I want my money back ... (Saffire)

You're my hot little cookie And you bring out the boogie in me (Sonny Terry/Brownie McGee)

I'm gonna lay my head on that cold old railroad line, Let the 2:19 train ease my troubled mind ... (Ibid)

I'm a little bit like a lawnmower, baby Kinda hard to get me started, but then I just won't quit ...

Oh... that was me.

nivver mind

WW

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: heric
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 11:15 PM

I don't think that I can take it cause it took so long to bake it and I'LL NEVER HAVE THAT RECIPE AGAAAIIIIN

But seriously:

She's my best friend's girl and she used to be mine.

Muddy Waters

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Rolfyboy6
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 11:09 PM

"She walks like she got oil wells in her backyard" - Lightnin' Hopkins "Katie Mae".

"You know her daddy musta been a millionare, I can tell by the way she walks" - Sonny Boy Williamson II "Eyesight To The Blind" ----

The Mudcat tongue-in-cheek anthem: "Don't Start Me To Talkin', I'll Tell You Everything I Know" Sonny Boy Williamson II (to be sung gleefully) :

" Goin' down to Rosie's, from Fannie Mae's, Gonna tell Fannie what I heard her boyfriend say.

Cho: "Don't start me to talkin, I'll tell you everything I know, We got to beak up this signifying, Oohh, somebody's got to go.

------

Muddy Waters: "My home is on the Delta, Way down that farmer's road I'm leaving for Chicago, people I sure do hate to go."

(Anon.) "There's a long, long night train gonna carry me 'way from home"

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Jerry Rasmussen
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 08:28 PM

Hey, Stewie:

You my man. This is the second thread I've gone to post something, and see that you've already posted it. We must love the same stuff.

How about: Lookit that fellow right over yonder
Looks just like he'd like to ponder
Lookit that hair all around his mouth
Like he swallowed a mule and left the
tail hanging out.

From Mornin' Blues

Jerry

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Bert
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 08:04 PM

I don't want no skinny woman
I want one with plenty of meat
I want a girl who will rock all day
she won't even stop to eat.
Jimmy Rodgers

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Morticia
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 07:25 PM

And the wind is blowing cold tonight
Goodnight, Louise, goodnight

Louise:Paul Siebel

Just give me one thing, that I can believe in
To believe in this living is just a hard way to go

Angel from Montgomery: John Prine

The joke was on me
There was nobody even there to blush

Tom Thumb Blues: Bob Dylan

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Stewie
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 06:53 PM

A couple from the country lads:

My gal's got a mouse's ear
But she's gonna lose it when I shift my gear

Cliff Carlisle - 'Mouse's Ear Blues'

Gonna telephone to heaven to send me an angel down (x2)
If you haven't got an angel, St Peter, send me a high-steppin' brown

Jimmie Davis - 'Sewing Machine Blues'

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 06:20 PM

Don't need no whisky, I don't need no rum,
Just need you, baby, when the summer come.

By Joe Summer

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Joe_F
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:54 PM

Don't need no whisky, I don't need no rum,
Just need you, baby, when the summer come.

...

Look on yonder, see that eagle rise.
He was born on land, but he sure enjoys the skies.


-- Eric von Schmidt

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: alanabit
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:54 PM

I don't know which song it was, but I once heard the line: "I'm gonna kill you and make you dead..." And I always used to think it was bad enough just getting killed...

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Lonesome EJ
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:46 PM

I'm like a one-eyed catfish peepin' in a seafood store...
Shake, Rattle and Rollamong others

Get outta that bed and wash your face and hands
Get in that kitchen make some noise with them pots and pans

You men eat your dinner...coal dust and beans
I eat more chicken any man ever seen Back Door Man Willie Dixon

On the seventh hour
Of the seventh day
Of the seventh month
The seventh Doctor say
"He was born for luck"
Woman can't you see
I got seven hundred dollars Baby
Don't you mess with me.... Mannish Boy Muddy Waters

If my baby don't love me no more
I know her sister will...Red House Blues Jimi Hendrix

I woke up this mornin' and got myself a beer
The future's uncertain and the end is always near...Roadhouse Blues Jim Morrison

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:30 PM

Well he walks right
He talks right
Plays guitar, that bluesy kind
He's got a way with women
And he just got away with mine!

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: catspaw49
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:26 PM

"It's plain to see it's you or me
.......And I ain't about to go.
Separation Blues, Pat Sky

Spaw

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:23 PM

I gave you a brand new car, Now you want a Cadillac
I gave you seven children Now you want to give them back

I don't know the song but I've seen B.B. King sing it three times in concert it always gets a big cheer from the audience.

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: John MacKenzie
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:21 PM

Well I woke up this morning.
Jock

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Rory B
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:09 PM

I'm throwing away my dust mop Got a brand new vacuum cleaner You outta hear me when I holler Eureka! Eureka!

I need a young man....to drive away my middle aged blues.

Middle Aged Blues Saffire The Uppity Blues Women

hugggs Rory

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 05:09 PM

I gave you a brand new car, Now you want a Cadillac
I gave you seven children Now you want to give them back

I don't know the song but I've seen B.B. King sing it three times in concert it always gets a big cheer from the audience.

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Stewie
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 04:57 PM

Sometimes I think that you too sweet to die
Sometimes I think that you too sweet to die
And another time I think you oughta be buried alive

Richard 'Rabbit' Brown - 'James Alley Blues'

--Stewie.

Subject: RE: Best BLUES lines
From: Amos
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 04:35 PM

Ya wanna know blues, tell you if I can
It's a two-dollar woman tied up to a one-dollar man

(Uncertain origin)

A

Subject: Best BLUES lines
From: Jim Dixon
Date: 07 Dec 01 - 04:31 PM

There have been several threads about best lines from songs, but never one devoted to blues songs specifically, that I can find. I have been transcribing a 2-CD set of songs by Tampa Red, and I am struck by the number of good lines I have never heard before. That's surprising, since good lines tend to "float" and get used over and over in blues. (Or maybe I just don't get out enough.) Here are the ones I mean:

I'll kill your soul and dare your spirit to move.
--Title and refrain of song

Now, my food ain't fitting and my house ain't clean.
You're the dirtiest old woman I've ever seen.
--YOU'VE GOT TO DO BETTER

Now, if I should call you, mama, and you refuse to come,
Heart Spring Water sure won't help you none.
--GRIEVIN' AND WORRYIN' BLUES

Your road is clear and it ain't no hill.
Don't say you won't, 'cause I know you will.
--GIVE IT UP BUDDY AND GET GOIN'

Sweet woman, sweet woman, where did you stay last night?
Sweet woman, where did you stay last night?
You've got your dress on backwards and your clothes don't fit you right.
--SWEET WOMAN

Now you gonna catch hell because you stayed so long.
You just well to get it fixed before you carry it home.
--SHAKE IT UP A LITTLE

Baby, let's give a party, and let's have some fun.
I got the hot-dog, so you just bring the bun.
--I'M BETTING ON YOU

So when we get married, I'll never throw her down.
I will stay right with her till my mustache drags the ground.
--GOOD WOMAN BLUES

I'm not certain, but I think I understand. (2x)
You just cared less about me than you did for your other man.
--WAITING BLUES
(Note: I find the above line extraordinary for its plain-spokenness, and above all, humility – uncommon qualities in blues.)

I wasn't by myself. Everybody there saw it.
She was giving my jelly 'way and not getting nothing for it.
--SHE DON'T KNOW MY MIND

Now, I peeped in the window and this is what I saw:
A man crawling on his knees doing the cootie-cootie crawl.
--SHE DON'T KNOW MY MIND

For those interested in the old threads, here they are, oldest first, according to date started:
best single lines
YOUR Best original single lines.
Best single lines PART TWO
The Best Song Lines EVER--For Us Newbies
BS: Best lines
Help: lines that jump out at you
BS: Your OWN best lines