Thursday, September 02, 2010

Blind Blake: Detroit Bound Blues













Blind Blake, “Detroit Bound Blues” (1928)*

I'm goin' to Detroit
Get myself a good job
I'm goin' to Detroit
Get myself a good job
Tired of staying around here
With the starvation mob

I'm goin' to get me a job
Up there in Mistah Ford's place
Gonna get me a job
Up there in Mistah Ford's place
Stop these eatless days from
Starin' me in the face

I'm goin' to Detroit
Get me a barrelhouse flat
I'm goin' to Detroit
Get me a barrelhouse flat
I would take my baby
But I don’t know where she’s at

When I start to makin' money
She don't need to come around
When I start to makin' money
She don't need to come around
'Cause I don't want her now, Lord
I'm Detroit bound

They got wild women in Detroit
That's what I want to see
They got wild women in Detroit
That's all I want to see
Wild women and bad whiskey
Would make a fool out of me

Today's Rune: Possessions.  *Clearly, Robert Hicks' "Me and My Whiskey" (1929) makes only a slight variation to the last lines with "Wild women and whiskey can / Make a fool out of me."  See previous post for comparison.




3 comments:

jodi said...

Erik, Cool tuney. Cheers to the wild women of Detroit. Be scared, be verrrry scared!

the walking man said...

So many from the south had that same God Damned dream and now what's here is what is left of it. Henry Ford would have let the bastard sweep the floor and UAW would have let him do it at half wages in 1928.

Talk about a dream that died heavy and fast.

ivan@creativewriting.ca said...

Heh.

I knew you knew how to make me come around. Blind Blake. Yeah.

Love the blues.

Would love to put out my album as a blues-loving white guy.

But I'd certainly have to change my name, perhaps to a real blues name. "Blind, Lame and Crippled Horribly Ivan?"
That would get them.