Show 67 - Back-biting Man

"They call me a back biter, I’ll bite any man in the back." There’s nothing unusual about cheating songs in the blues. Stepping put on your man or woman could be considered one of the cornerstones of the genre. Today we’ll take a look at a specific subset of those songs: men who stole their friend’s woman. It’s interesting to hear men sing about being that backbiting friend, because the stereotypical depiction of women as the ones who are out to steal and backbite when it come to romance. But here are a few where men pronounce themselves the backbiting woman stealers. We’ll start with Ramblin’ Thomas from 1928, Back Gnawin' Blues:

I ain’t never loved but three womens in my life
I ain’t never loved but three womens in my life
My mother and my sister and my partner's wife

My mama told me when I was about twelve years old
My mama told me when I was about twelve years old
"Son, you're nothing but a back-biter. May God bless your soul."

They call me back-biter. I am a back-biter. I'll bite any man in the back.

Gonna tell all of you women something, baby, you might not like
And I'm gonna tell all of you women something, baby, you might not like
I want to know if I can bite your man in the back 

You might risk me, brother, but I will never risk you
Well, you might risk me, brother, but I will never risk you
If you allow me a chance, I will gnaw your backbone half in two 

Sylvester Weaver was one of the earliest musicians to record in the country blues format. In 1927, he sang about being a back biter in Can't Be Trusted Blues:

I don't love nobody, that's my policy
I don't love nobody, that's my policy
I'll tell the world that nobody can get along with me

I can't be trusted, can't be satisfied
I can't be trusted, can't be satisfied
The men all know it and pin their women to their side

I will sure back-bite you, gnaw you to the bone
I will sure back-bite you, gnaw you to the bone
I don't mean maybe, I can't let women alone

Pull down your windows and lock up all your doors
Pull down your windows, lock up all your doors
Got ways like the devil, papa's creeping on all fours 

In Stole Rider Blues, Blind Willie McTell sang about stealing a girl from his friend as well as indulging in the more typical description of women as the back biting friends.

I'm going to grab me a train ride the lonesome rail
Going to grab me a train ride the lonesome rail
Nigger stole my baby, she's in the lonesome jail

He took my mama carried her to the town of Rome
He took my mama carried her to the town of Rome
Now she's screaming and crying papa let your mama come back home

I stole my good gal from my bosom friend
I stole my good gal from my bosom friend
That fool got lucky, he stole her back again

Now the woman I love got a mouth chock full of good gold
Now the woman I love got a mouth chock full of good gold
Every time she hug and kiss me it make my blood run cold

When you see two women running hand in hand
When you see two women running hand in hand
Bet you my last dollar one done stole the other’s man

I'm leaving town, please don't spread the news
I'm leaving town, please don't spread the news
That why I've got these old stole rider blues 

Robert Johnson's classic Come on In My Kitchen centers around the idea of having stolen your best friend's woman and some of the bad things that seems to come with it.

You better come on in my kitchen, It's going to be raining outdoors
The woman I love, took from my best friend
Some joker got lucky, stole her back again

You better come on in my kitchen, it's going to be raining outdoors

Why she’s gone, I know she won’t be coming back
I’ve taken the last nickel out of her nation sack
You better come on in my kitchen, it's going to be raining outdoors

Mama, can't you hear that wind howl?
Oh how the wind do howl

When a woman gets in trouble, everybody throws her down
Looking for her good friend, none can be found
You better come on in my kitchen, it's going to be raining outdoors

Bad times coming, it’s gonna be slow
You can’t make the winter babe, just dry long so
You better come on in my kitchen, cause it's going to be raining outdoors 

Johnson borrowed the "stole from my best friend" line from either Johnnie Temple's song Evil Devil Blues or Skip James' original version of the same song titled Devil Got My Woman. Both songs end with the line and it feels like something of a conclusion about why difficult times are here.

Johnnie Temple - Evil Devil Blues:

I'd rather be dead and in my horrible tomb
To hear my woman, some man done taken my room, taken my room
I'd rather be the devil, to be that woman's man, that woman’s man

The woman I love, the woman I love, the woman I love, she don't pay me no mind, me no mind
Going to pack my things going further down the line, down the line

I lay down last night, I laid down last night, and I tried to take my rest
My mind got to rambling like the wild geese from the west, from the west

The devil is evil, changed my baby's mind
You be my woman, be my woman, be my woman, I tell you what I will do, I will do
I'll cut your kindling, I will build your fire
I'll tote your water, from the boggy bayou

The woman I love, I stole her from my best friend, my best friend
Lord he got lucky and stole her back again, stole her back again 

Skip James - Devil Got My Woman:

I'd rather be the devil to be that woman's man
I'd rather be the devil to be that woman's man
Oh nothing but the devil changed my baby's mind
Oh nothing but the devil changed my baby's mind

I laid down last night, I laid down last night, I laid down last night, tried to take my rest
My mind got to rambling like the wild geese from the west

The woman I love, woman that I love, the woman I love, took her from my best friend
But he got lucky, stole her back again
And he got lucky, stole her back again

Songs:
Back Gnawing Blues - Ramblin' Thomas
Can't Be Trusted Blues - Sylvester Weaver
Stole Rider Blues - Blind Willie McTell
Come On In My Kitchen - Robert Johnson
Evil Devil Blues - Johnnie Temple
Devil Got My Woman - Skip James

Show 55 - News of the World

Most blues songs tend to focus on the local. Songs often address issues at home. But like everyone else, blues singers live in the world and are aware of the world beyond their hometowns. So I thought we’d take a look at some songs that talk about what’s going on overseas and news from around the world.

Maybe the best song of this type is Minnie Wallace’s The Cockeyed World. Recorded in 1935, the song’s about the Italian invasion of Ethiopia. The bravery of the Ethiopian soldiers fighting against an army with vastly superior weapons became a point of pride for African-Americans. Newspapers like the Chicago Defender reported on the war frequently and Minnie Wallace recorded this song just nine days after the invasion of October 3rd:

I woke up this morning feeling mighty sadI woke up this morning feeling mighty sadWas the worst old feeling that I ever had

It's war on Ethiopia and mama's feeling blue
It's war on Ethiopia and mama's feeling blue
I tell the cockeyed world I don't know what to do

They say that Ethiopia is a long ways from here
They say that Ethiopia is a long ways from here
They trying to steal my man and hurry him over there

I love my man, tell the cockeyed world I do
I love my man, tell the cockeyed world I do
It's coming the time that he'll sure love me too

This old cockeyed world will make your good man treat you mean
This old cockeyed world will make your good man treat you mean
He will treat you just like a poor girl he never seen

It's war on Ethiopia and my man won't behave
It's war on Ethiopia and my man won't behave
I tell the cockeyed world I'll spit in my baby's face

It's war on Ethiopia baby please please behave
It's war on Ethiopia please please behave
I tell the cockeyed world I'll follow you to your grave

Wallace sees the war in Ethiopia as an example of screwed up nature of the world. It’s the same thing that makes her man mistreat her at home. Several years later, Georgia’s Frank Edwards also looked at war with an eye towards how it affected things at home. He recorded We Got to Get Together in May of 1941, seven months before he U.S. would enter the war, but he was already seeing the effect of the War in Europe on the men at home that Uncle Sam would soon need:

Hitler cutting the world gotten disturbed
Uncle Sam better decide and gotten blood in his eye

You got to get together, you got to get together
Got to closen up together, join one hand in hand

Mussolini jumped back up in the sack
Hitler kicked him out so he couldn't get back
We got to get together
We got to get together
Got to closen up together, join one hand in hand

Uncle Sam called the men down name by name
He ain't together but they ready just the same
You got to get together
We got to get together
Got to closen up together, join one hand in hand

Uncle Sam need a champ, he rang the bell
A well trained man when you leave Camp Shelby

We got to get together
We got to get together
Got to closen up together, join one hand in hand

Say I left my woman standing in the door
Crying Lord have mercy they mustn't let him, please don't go
We got to get together
We got to get together
Got to closen up together, join one hand in hand

When King Edward VIII chose to give up the throne for the love of a divorced American woman in 1936, he became  a symbol of love for romantics all over the world. That included Blind Willie McTell who recorded King Edward Blues in 1940.

Tell me honey, now tell me please
Is my lover now hard to please?
I’m getting groggy in my knees
Baby and it must be love

A funny feeling reaches up my spine
My head like cherry wine
Makes me think the world’s allmine
Baby and it must be love

I hear church bell ringing, I see visions clear
I hear the birdies singing
I know darn well that no bird is there

I don’t like your shirts and ties, they don’t seem to harmonize
They don’t match those big brown eyes
Baby and it must be love

Can be a rich man, a poor man, a beggar man king
It will make you give up everything
Every time you feel that sting, honey, it must be love

Make a preacher lay his bible down
Made a rabbit hug a hound
Made King Edward give up his crown
Baby and it must be love

I hear church bell ringing, I see visions clear
I hear the birdies singing
I know darn well that no bird is there

I don’t like your shirts and ties, they don’t seem to harmonize
They don’t match those big brown eyes
Mama and it must be love
Baby and it must be love

We know Kokomo Arnold traveled a lot across the United States, from the descriptive storytelling in Big Ship Blues he may have made a trans-Atlantic voyage as well:

Now this big ship is rocking and my body's filled with aches and pains
Now this big ship is rocking and my body's filled with aches and pains
Now if I get across the Atlantic Ocean, good people I will not live to Spain

Now the big tide is rising, you better lower your anchors down
Now the big tide is rising, you better lower your anchors down
Now if we don't make the circle, we never will get back to New York town

Now why don't you people quit laughing? I feel mighty sad in my mind
Now why don't you people quit laughing? I feel mighty sad in my mind
Said this big fog gone to rising and a cyclone is right behind

Now I feel bad, nobody seems to want to go my way
Now I feel bad, nobody seems to want to go my way
Said this big ship going to leaking, right between midnight and day

Now I see something shining, daylight is breaking all around
Now I see something shining, daylight is breaking all around
Soon as we make a few more notches, I will be right back in New York town

Arnold’s story brings to mind the many great songs telling the story of the sinking of the Titanic including Rabbit Brown’s amazing Sinking of the Titanic from 1928:

It was on the 10th of April on a sunny afternoon
The Titanic left Southampton, each one as happy as bride and groom
No one thought of danger or what their fate may be
Until a gruesome iceberg caused 1500 to perish in the sea

It was early Monday morning, just about the break of day
Captain said call for help from the Carpathia and it was many miles away
Everyone was calm and silent, asked each other what the trouble may be
Not thinking that death was lurking there upon that northern sea

The Carpathia received the wireless SOS redistress
Come at once, we are sinking, make no delay and do your best
Get the lifeboats all in readiness 'cause we're going down very fast
We have saved the women and the children and tried to hold out to the last

Now at last they called out all the passengers, told them to hurry to the deck
Then they realized that the mighty Titanic was about to be a wreck
They lowered the lifeboats one by one, taking women and children from the start
The poor men were left to care for themselves but they sure played a hero's part 

You know they stood out on that sinking deck and they was all in great despair
You know accidents may happen most anytime and we know not when and where
The music played as they went down on that dark blue sea
And you could hear the sound of that familiar hymn, singing 'Nearer my God to Thee'

Nearer my God to thee
Nearer my God to thee
Nearer my God to thee
Nearer to thee

Though like a wanderer as the sun goes down
Darkness be over me just when the Titanic went down

Rabbit Brown recorded that in 1928 and the Titanic sunk in 1912, so Brown was retelling a legend more than commenting on the news.  When the Memphis Jug Band recorded Lindberg Hop that same year they were talking about more recent news, Charles Lindbergh’s transatlantic flight of the year before:

I know they’re gonna write to me
When they get across the sea, every chance when that Washington lands in France

How you say it, for now, sugar baby

Now mama, don’t you weep and moan,
Uncle Sam’s got your man and gone,
Now he’s doing that Lindbergh across the sea.

Now mama how can it be, you went way across the sea,
Just to keep from doing that Lindybird with me
Oh babe now I done told you
If I had my uniform on, I could live it — just as sure as you born
Then I’ll do that Lindbergh across the sea

She asked me for a bottle of Kaye Ola
I said, “Mama, let me play it on your Victrola,
Then I’ll do that Lindybird with you. ”
How you say it, for now, sugar baby?

I asked her for a piece of banana
She said, “Jab, play the blues on your piano,
Then I’ll do that Lindybird with you."

Songs:

The Cockeyed World - Minnie Wallace

We Got to Get Together - Frank Edwards

Kings Edward Blues - Blind Willie McTell

Big Ship Blues - Kokomo Arnold

Sinking of the Titanic - Rabbit Brown

Lindberg Hop - Memphis Jug Band

Show 44 - Snow Blues

Songs:
Ice and Snow Blues - Peetie Wheatstraw
Easin' Back to Tennessee - Sleepy John Estes
South Bound Backwater - Lonnie Johnson
Cold Winter Blues - Kokomo Arnold
Cold Winter Day - Blind Willie McTell
Ice and Snow Blues - Clifford Gibson

Show 40 - Boll Weevil Blues

The boll weevil--its a beetle that's less than a quarter of an inch long, but capable of destroying entire crops of cotton. In the 1920s, the boll weevil infested virtually every cotton growing area in the United States. To singers in these areas, the boll weevil became simultaneously a disaster that could destroy someone's livelihood and something that could be identified with. A seemingly powerless creature capable of completely subverting the goals of the agricultural ruling class. Its no surprise that one of the Mississippi delta's great storytellers wrote and recorded a song about the boll weevil. Charley Patton recorded Mississippi Bo Weavil at his first recording session in 1929 but there are reports of him playing the song a early as 1908 when the boll weevil might first have shown up at Dockery plantation where he lived.

It's a little boll weevil moving in the .... lord
You can plant your cotton and you won't get half a bale, lord
Boll weevil boll weevil, where's your little home?
"Louisiana and Texas is where I'm bred and born, lord"

Well I saw the boll weevil, Lord a‑circle Lord in the air, lord
The next time I seen him, Lord he had his family there, lord
Boll weevil left Texas, Lord he bid me fare you well, lord
Where you going now?

"I'm going down to Mississippi, going to give Louisiana hell"
Boll weevil told the farmer that I ain't going to treat you fair
Took all the blossoms and leave you an empty square
Next time I seen you, you have your family there, lordy

Boll weevil and his wife went and sit down on the hill
Boll weevil told his wife let's take this forty in
Boll weevil told his wife, I believe I may go north, lord

Aw, I won't tell nobody

Let's leave Louisiana and go to Arkansas
Well I saw the boll weevil, Lord a‑circle Lord in the air, lord
Next time I seen him, lord he had his family there, lord
Boll weevil told the farmer that I ain't going to treat you fair

...
Boll weevil boll weevil where your little home?
"Most anywhere they raise cotton and corn, lord"
Boll weevil boll weevil call that treating me fair, lord
Next time I seen you, you had your family there

Paramount Records originally released Mississippi Boweavil Blues under the artist name "The Masked Marvel." The song tells the story of the Boll Weevil coming from Texas and spreading throughout the South. Ma Rainey also sang about the boll weevil being everywhere you go in her 1923 recording Bo-Weavil Blues:

Hey boll weevil, don't sing the blues no more
Hey hey boll weevil, don't sing the blues no more
Boll weevils here, boll weevils everywhere you go

I'm a lone boll weevil, been out a great long time
I'm a lone boll weevil, been out a good long time
I'm going to tell you people, the evil boll weevil loves some vine

I don't want no man to put no sugar in my tea
I don't want no man to put no sugar in my tea
That bug is so evil, I'm afraid it might poison me

I went downtown and bought me a hat
I brought it back home, I put it on the shelf
Looked at my bed, I'm getting tired of sleeping by myself

Harmonica player Jaybird Coleman also recorded a boll weevil song. Its one of the many that explicitly compares the boll weevil to a man out to give the farmer a hard time. Boll Weevil Blues:

Boll weevil boll weevil you think you treat me wrong
Eat up all of my cotton, you done started on my corn

...
If you don't let me have it, down the road I'm going

Boll weevil's got mustache, boll weevil's got hands
Sometimes he's walking in the tall canes, just like a natural man

Boll Weevil told the farmer
... your cotton, plant it in your yard

Blind Willie McTell recorded a great take on the Boll Weevil theme:

Boll Weevil, Boll Weevil where you get your great long bill?
"I got it from Texas, I got it from the western hills."
"I got it from Texas, I got it from the western hills."

Boll Weevil, he told the farmer, said "don't you buy no more pills,"
"You aint gonna make enough money to pay your drugstore bills."
"You aint gonna make enough money to even pay your drugstore bills"

Boll Weevil, he told the farmer, "don't you plow no more."
"Ain't gonnna make enough flour in your back door."
"Ain't gonnna make enough flour to even put in your back door."

Boll Weevil, he told the farmer, "don't buy no Ford machine"
"You aint gonna make enough money to even buy gasoline."
"Aint gonna make enough money to even buy gasoline.

Boll Weevil said to the farmer, "don't buy no fields"
"You aint gonna make enough money to even buy your meal."
"Won't make enough money to even buy your meal."

Boll Weevil, Boll Weevil where you say you got your great long bill?
"I got it from Texas, out in the western hills."
"Way out in the panhandle, out in the Western hills."

Boll Weevil ballads were recorded by dozens of artists in the 20s and 30s. The black singer's identification with the boll weevil is clear, some singers even took Boll Weevil for their name. The best know recorded for Vocalion under the name Sam Butler. His real name was probably James Jackson, but he's known best from the name on his Paramount recording, Bo Weavil Jackson. Devil and My Brown Blues is his take on the boll weevil.

Charlie Dad Nelson recorded another song about the interaction between farmer and boll weevil, Cotton Field Blues:

Boll weevil, boll weevil, where did you come from?
Boll weevil, boll weevil, where did you come from?
From Beaumont Texas, I'm just over here on the farm

Farmer said to the boll weevil, don't you know you doing me wrong?
Farmer said to the boll weevil, don't you know you doing me wrong?
Eat up all my cotton and eat up all my corn

Says I'm going to town to buy a little gasoline
Says I'm going to town to buy a little gasoline
He's the worst boll weevil I believe I ever seen

With Let Me Be Your Boll Weevil, Lee Brown took a different take on the boll weevil, finding the sexual metaphor in its burrowing inside of the cotton boll.

Dozens of field recordings were made of boll weevil songs. Check out the Document Records collection, Boll Weevil Here, Boll Weevil Everywhere. Finious "Flat Foot" Rockmore recorded one of the more memorable versions.

Songs about the Boll Weevil were recorded in every cotton state. The devastation caused by the little bug had a tremendous impact on the lives of those connected to agriculture. The weevil seemed indestructible and did its work in secret, hatching in the boll to consume from within. You can see why it might appeal to those oppressed by the agricultural system in the American South. The boll weevil continued to frequently destroy crops in North America until the US Department of Agriculture started the Boll Weevil Eradication Program in 1978. Now, the weevil may not be the force it once was, but the songs testify to its ability to wreak havoc with the agricultural ruling class.


Songs:
Mississippi Boweavil Blues - Charley Patton
Bo-Weavil Blues - Ma Rainey
Boll Weevil - Jaybird Coleman
Boll Weevil - Blind Willie McTell
Devil And My Brown Blues - Boweavil Jackson
Cotton Field Blues - Charlie "Dad" Nelson
Let Me Be Your Bo Weavil- Lee Brown
Boll Weevil - Finious "Flat Foot" Rockmore