Country Blues > Country Blues Lyrics
Herman E. Johnson Lyrics
blueshome:
Bunker,
I would consider you an enthusiast and blues lover - you know very well the type of self-seeking arrogance I was inferring - that possessed by many members of the blues "mafia" here and in the US.
Phil
Richard:
Bunker, you are no more an anorak than I am and I don't mind being stuck in time warp either!
As Phil says you are an "enthusiast and blues lover ".
Johnm:
Hi all,
Another Herman Johnson performance that I have been particularly enjoying is his mysterious "She Is Looking For Me". It is an eerie, very freely phrased song played in Spanish tuning at A with a slide. If you have not heard the song before, I would say that the piece it most reminds me of, so far as its sound goes, would be Charlie Patton's "When Your Way Gets Dark", and it will give you some idea of the esteem that I hold "She Is Looking For Me" in to say that I do not think it suffers by comparison with the Patton performance. Like many players before him, Johnson often uses the slide to complete vocal phrases, but his use of the device is particularly effective. Moreover, he utililizes the friction of the slide on his wound strings to get a sound reminiscent of the sound of a chorus of peepers out in the countryside on a hot summer night. Johnson does not keep time in any regular way with the thumb of his right hand, but the absence of a clearly stated pulse suits the mood and phrasing of the song better than its presence would have. At the end of most verses Johnson just barely hints at the "3 phrased in 4" vamp found on a lot of Charley Lincoln records, that Charley most often phrased thumb-thumb-slide thumb-thumb-slide thumb-thumb-slide. This is really a special performance. Here is "She Is Looking For Me":
She are looking for (slide), she are looking for me
Yes, I know she are looking for me
I'm going to catch me a train, if I have to ride on the top
Because I know, she are looking for (slide)
I am looking for my fiancee, and I don't intend to stop
SPOKEN: Not until I finds her!
Because I know she are looking for me
I dreamed about her a lot and I almost cry
Because I know that she was looking for me
Whenever I sees her in my dream, I know she is not satisfied
That's how I knew that she was looking for me
Yes, she is looking for (slide), she is looking for me
Yes I know, she are looking (slide)
All best,
Johnm
Johnm:
Hi all,
Herman Johnson came through with another very strong song and performance on "She Had Been Drinking". He played it on a distorting electric guitar that suited the song beautifully, in a variant of Spanish tuning I have not heard before. The upper five strings are as they would normally be tuned in Spanish, pitched at A, but Johnson tuned his sixth string down a full octave below his fifth string, ending up with a really eerie-sounding very low root there. The resulting tuning, A-A-E-A-C#-E, is similar to Roscoe Holcomb's version of Spanish tuning, except that Roscoe's fifth and sixth strings are tuned to a unison rather than an octave apart. Herman Johnson's left hand on the song is almost exclusively fretting single strings--there are no chord positions as such, and the song could just as well have been down with a slide, though the effect might have been less punchy. The song has a very funky sort of Latin groove.
Lyrically, the song is a chorus blues, with the chorus changing from verse to verse, a really neat feature. The song is unusual for a blues in suggesting that drinking can result in something other than a great time. The first two verses are especially tough. Where Johnson ended a sung line instrumentally, I will indicate it with a dash. Here is "She Had Been Drinking":
CHORUS: I know you had been drinkin', baby, I had --
I just don't like it, woman, and it's no need to say I --
I was standing at the gate when she looked around
Caught her by the hand and I knocked her down
Because she had been a-drinkin', my mama had --
I just don't like it, woman, and it's no need to say I --
She got a-loose from me, beat me to the door
She and I stumbled all over the floor
Because she had been a-drinkin', my mama had --
I just don't like it, woman, and it's no need to say I --
You've been giving me lots of trouble, running around
That man you used to love he must have put you down
Is that why you're drinkin', well, then I am --
I just don't like it, woman, and I --
I know you had been drinkin', then I had --
I just don't like it, woman, and it's no need to say I --
All best,
Johnm
Johnm:
Hi all,
After posting the lyrics to "She Had Been Drinking" yesterday, I realized there is something really striking about the way Herman Johnson uses the guitar to finish the vocal phrases on the chorus. If you look at his first chorus as an example:
I know you had been drinkin', baby, I had --
I just don't like it, woman, and it's no need to say I --
The dashes at the end of each line represent the guitar being used to finish the line. It seemed obvious that the omitted word at the end of the second line was "do", but I couldn't make sense with it rhyming with the end of the first line. Then I realized that the omitted word at the end of the first line is "too". I can not recall another instance in the Country Blues where the rhyme words at the ends of the lines of the chorus are never sung during the course of the rendition, and are only played, trusting the listener to pick up the implicit meaning. It is a really advanced compositional concept, and I think it is especially cool the way Herman Johnson gave his listeners credit for being able to fill in the blanks. Hats off!
All best,
Johnm
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