Smokestack Lightning

 

     Texts of the songs discussed, including a transcription of Howlin’ Wolf’s recording that represents the non-word sounds in his performance, are appended. 

     

 

     Apart from the striking repeated title image Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” [1], consists largely a of collage of blues formulae mixed with more significant and effective inarticulate moans and cries.  The song, with its elemental emotional appeal, made number eleven on the R & B charts and has since been covered by countless bands, including significantly the Yardbirds who brought Wolf’s lyrics a huge white audience.

     Musically the performance could hardly be more focused with its driving relentless vamp on a single chord.  The song contains some of the most familiar language in blues literature; set phrases of complaint that define the genre.

 

 

Why don't ya hear me cryin'?

 

Whoa oh, tell me, baby

What's the, matter with you

 

Where did ya, stay last night?

 

Whoa-oh, fare ya well

Never see, a you no more

 

Whoa-oh, who been here baby since,

I-I been gone

 

     This web of lament is then intensified by the non-linguistic utterances so prominent in Wolf’s oeuvre, indeed the basis for his name.  Here the singer bursts beyond the capacity of words, as in scatting, field hollers, and gospel screams, and the yodeling Wolf admired, a kind of eloquent speaking in tongues, giving voice to the suffering of human life expressed also in everyday life at times as wordless sighs or weeping. 

     Against a background of highly conventionalized set phrases, the title image stands out dramatically.  “Smokestack lightning” had appeared earlier in songs by the Charlie Patton and Mississippi Sheiks as well as by Wolf himself. [2]  In spite of this small place in tradition, the expression reportedly puzzled bassist Willie Dixon. [3]  Though discussion continues, Wolf provided a simple and convincing comment on the origin of the image: "We used to sit out in the country and see the trains go by, watch the sparks come out of the smokestack. That was smokestack lightning." [4] 

    In Howlin’ Wolf’s song, the image accumulates all the more signification due to its underdetermination.  A semiotic map of “smokestack lightning” would begin with the direct reference to a steam railway locomotive smokestack which triggers associations common to the blues in which trains suggest most often loss and love longing but sometimes escape and liberation.  The trains were a dramatic intrusion of the outside world for the farm worker, representing specifically the exit from local life, the route to the cities and the North.  The train as an agent of change was often the herald of suffering and its mechanical might seemed all but supernatural.  Countless songs refer to the train separating one-time lovers. [5]  In the song’s immediate predecessors the train’s stack is associated with loss.  Patton sang that the train’s appearance “give me the blues” because the singer is “'fraid she's gettin' on board.”  The railroad association is more tenuous though the separation is more final in the Mississippi Sheiks usage in which the singer is “cryin'” due to finding “my baby/ Layin' on the coolin' floor.”  The melancholy connotations of the train cling to it even when there is no question of anyone riding out of town, when, in fact, the train is reduced to pure symbol.

     The suggestive potency of the striking image of “smokestack lightning” is not limited to the mournful associations of its sound at night, a use reminiscent of the role of the calls of wild geese in Chinese poetry.  The fiery combustion of the engine, its titanic pressures and terrific heat, represent as well the strength of libido that drives all creatures always forward.  The great clouds of steam and smoke generated by a steam locomotive provide a glimpse into the churning heart of life itself.  The glowing sparks seem animated germs of existence.

     Convention is often opposed to innovation and denigrated by critics, though in fact a discerning use of convention allows the economical expression of themes of great complexity.  In Howlin’ Wolf’s “Smokestack Lightning” both musical and verbal resources are restricted to the bare minimum, and one single “floating image,” that of “smokestack lightning,” governs the entire song like that single insistent chord against a tissue of blues commonplaces and even more universal non-verbal utterances.  The image is the richer and the deeper for its measure of indeterminacy.  The songc is a classic not of complexity, but of fierce single-minded intensity, both in feeling and in structure.  Beginning and then periodically dissolving in inarticulate vocalizations, against a collage of floating phrases with great elliptical gaps the listener must complete, the song unforgettably portrays the suffering of the singer as the driving music indicates the unfailing energy to persist in the face of pain and loss. 

 

 1.  “Smoke Stack Lightning” was released in 1956.  In subsequent recording and most covers the song is called “Smokestack Lightning.”  The band consisted of Howlin' Wolf singing and playing harmonica, Hosea Lee Kennard on piano, Willie Johnson and Hubert Sumlin on guitars, Willie Dixon on bass, and Earl Phillips on drums.

 2.  Patton’s “Moon Going Down” (1929) contains the line: “Lord, the smokestack is black and the bell it shine like, bell it shine like, bell it shine like gold/ Oh the smokestack is black and the bell it shine like gold.”  The Mississippi Sheiks’ “Stop and Listen Blues” (1930) contains the lines “Cryin', smokestack lightning/ That bell that shine like gold.”  In 1951 Wolf had released "Crying at Daybreak" which uses the same image: “Smokestack lightnin', shining just like gold/ Honey do you hear me crying?”

3. According to James Segrest.  See his The Life and Times of Howlin' Wolf. 

4.  This line is quoted hundreds of times, including in the “Smokestack Lightning” entry in Rolling Stone’s list of “500 Greatest Rock and Roll Songs, but I have not located its first appearance in print. 

5.  The range of train references in rural songs is suggested by a few examples: “Railroad Blues” by Sam McGee, a white country singer, who says he “went to the depot, looked up on the board/ It read "Good times here, but better down the road."  In “Dixie Flyer Blues” by Bessie Smith the female speaker is leaving, while in Little Junior Parker’s “Mystery Train” she’s likewise on her way, but the persona is male.  In Robert Johnson’s “Love in Vain” it is unclear who is taking the train.  Many songs (such as Henry Thomas’ “Railroadin’” refer to travel by freight train, while in others such as Leadbelly’s “Midnight Special” (and Johnny Cash’s “Folsom Prison Blues”) the train is simply the emblem of freedom.  In Big Bill Broonzy’s “Too Too Train” the engine is a dynamo outdone by a lover’s energy.

 

And she do a little of this

And mama and she do a little of that

And when she put on full steam

Make a freight train jump a track

 

 

 

 

 

 

Smokestack Lightning {Howlin’ Wolf] 1956

 

 

Ah oh, smokestack lightnin'

Shinin', just like gold

Why don't ya hear me cryin'?

 

Whoo hoo

Whoo hoo

Whoo

 

Whoa oh, tell me, baby

What's the, matter with you?

Why don't ya hear me cryin'?

 

Whoo hoo

Whoo hoo

Whoo

 

Whoa oh, tell me, baby

Where did ya stay last night?

A-why don't ya hear me cryin'?

 

Whoo hoo

Whoo hoo

Whoo

 

Whoa-oh, stop your train

Let her, go for a ride

Why don't ya hear me cryin'?

 

Whoo hoo

Whoo hoo

Whoo

 

Whoa-oh, fare ya well

Never see, a you no more

A-why don't ya hear me cryin'?

 

Whoo hoo

Whoo hoo

Whoo

 

Whoa-oh, who been here baby since,

I-I been gone, a little, bitty boy

Girl, be on

 

Whoo hoo

Whoo hoo

Whoo

 

Whoa, smokestack lightnin'

Shinin' just like gold

Why don't you hear me cryin'?

A-whoo-hoo, a-whoo-hoo, whoo

Whoa-oh, tell me, baby

What's the matter here?

Why don't you hear me cryin'?

Whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo, whoo

Whoa-oh, tell me, baby

Where did you stay last night?

Why don't you hear me cryin'?

Whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo, whoo

Whoa-oh, stop your train

Let a poor boy ride

Why don't you hear me cryin'?

Whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo, whoo

Whoa-oh, fare-you-well

Never see a you no more

Why don't you hear me cryin'?

Whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo, whoo

Whoa-oh, who been here baby since

I, I been gone a little bitty boy?

Girl, be on        [heard by some as “derby on”]

A-whoo-hoo, whoo-hoo, whoo

 

 

 

 

Crying At Daybreak [Howlin’ Wolf] 1951

 

 

Tell me baby, what's done matter now

Today been a long and lonesome day

Lonesome day

 

Smokestack lightnin', shining just like gold

Honey do you hear me crying?

 

Today been a long and sad old day

Don't you hear me crying

 

Tell me baby what you got on your mind

Why don't you hear me crying

 

Ain't gonna marry, ain't gonna settle down

Why don't you hear me crying

 

 

 

 

Big Road Blues [Tommy Johnson] 1928

 

 

Cryin', ain't goin' down this big road by myself

Now don't you hear me talkin', pretty mama?

Lord, ain't goin' down this big road by myself

If I don't carry you, gon' carry somebody else

Cryin', sun gonna shine in my back door someday

Now, don't you hear me talkin', pretty mama?

Lord, sun gon' shine in my back door someday

And the wind gon' change, gon' blow my blues away

Baby, what makes you do me like you do do do, like you do do do?

Don't you hear me now?

What makes you do me like you do do do?

Now you think you gon' do me like you done poor Cherry Red

Taken the poor boy's money now, sure, Lord, won't take mine

Now don't you hear me talkin' pretty mama?

Taken the poor boy's money; sure, Lord, won't take mine

Taken the poor boy's money now; sure, Lord, won't take mine

Cryin', ain't goin' down this big road by myself

Now, don't you hear me talkin', pretty mama?

Lord, ain't goin' down this big road by myself

If I don't carry you, gon' carry somebody else

Cryin', sun gon' shine, Lord, my back door someday

Now don't you hear me talkin', pretty mama?

Lord, sun gon' shine in my back door someday

And the wind gon' change, blow my blues away

 

 

 

 

Stop and Listen Blues [Mississippi Sheiks] 1930

 

 

Ev'r day have been there

Long old lonesome day

Now don't ya a-hear me talkin', pretty mama?

Ev'r day have been

Long old lonesome day

Cry, it seem like you-ooo would

Be there ooo-ooo, same old way

 

Cryin', smokestack lightning

That bell that shine like gold

Now don't ya a-hear me talkin', pretty mama?

Ooh, smokestack lightning

Bells that shine like gold

Cryin', I found my baby

Layin' on the coolin' floor

 

Don't a hearse look lonesome, mama

Rollin' for yo' do'?

Now don't ya a-hear me talkin', pretty mama?

Don't a hearse look lonesome

 

Rollin' for yo' do'?

Cryin' she's gone, tell you-ooo, Lord

Won't be-ee-ee back no mo'

 

Ooh, stop and listen

Hear how those bells in toll

Now don't ya a-hear me talkin', pretty mama?

Ooh, stop and listen

Hear the bell it tolls

I had a sweet little faror

But she's dead and gone

 

 

 

 

Moon Going Down [Charlie Patton] 1930 

 

 

Aw, the moon is going down baby, sun's about to shine

Aw, the moon's going down baby, sun's about to shine

Rosetta Henry told me, "Lord, I don't want you hangin' round"

Oh well, where were you now baby, Clarksdale mill burned down?

Oh well, where were you now babe, Clarksdale mill burned down?

(Boy, you know where I were)

I were way down'n Sunflower with my face all full of frown

There's a house over yonder, painted all over green

There's a house over yonder, painted all over green

(Boy, you know I know it's over there)

Lord, the finest young women, Lord, a man most ever seen

Lord, I think I heard that Taylor whistle, Taylor whistle, Taylor whistle blow

Lord, I think I heard that Taylor whistle

(Well now I hear it blowin')

Lord, I ain't gonna stop walkin' 'til I get in my rider's door

Lord, the smokestack is black and the bell it shine like, bell it shine like, bell it shine like gold

Oh the smokestack is black and the bell it shine like gold.

(Cover me boy, you know it looks good to me)

Lord, I ain't gonna walk there, ah, babe ain't 'round no more

Aw, I evil was at midnight, 'til I heard the local blow

I was evil out at night, when I heard the local blow

(Boy it give me the blues...)

I got to see my rider, 'fraid she's gettin' on board

 

The Red Rooster

Texts of the songs discussed follow the essay.

     Willie Dixon’s song “The Red Rooster,” particularly in Howlin’ Wolf’s version, is a classic blues. Resting on a rich foundation of earlier lyrics, the song is minimal, underdetermined, almost purely allusive, yet its power was sufficient to propel a number of versions to hit status, including covers by Big Mama Thornton, Sam Cooke, the Doors, the Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, and many others.
     The song relates only the most limited information about the rooster, all in the past tense: he was too lazy to crow; nonetheless, he kept the barnyard either productively humming along or “upset in every way.” (Transcriptions and/or performances differ.) His roaming causes dogs to bark. This enigmatic description seems unintelligible, yet the tune has been a hit for a goodly list of artists. The underlying tradition reinforced by extra-textual performance elements constitutes a powerful and eloquent statement of erotic energy and ambivalence.
     Old country blues used farmyard imagery with archaic roots, which sometimes persisted in the later amplified music. The broadest stratum underlying the rooster figure is a simple association with fertility and sexuality. Since at least the seventeenth century (perhaps much earlier) the word cock has denoted the male sexual organ. [1] Combined with the rooster’s (conventionally masculine) self-assertion amounting at times to pugnacity, this pure sexuality renders the bird an efficient embodiment of masculine bragging. These characteristics have made the animal a national symbol for Portugal and France as well as a powerful image in Dixon’s song.
     From the unashamed boasting in heroic poetry through the erotic gab of medieval France [2] to the general assertion by the hip-hop duo Outkast in "Wailin’" “I use my gift of gab to boast and brag in every line,” ego assertion has frequently been prominent in poetry. Simply claiming the time of the audience or reader is egoistic for every artist. In racist America, when other forms of self-aggrandizement may have eluded many African-Americans, power as a lover remained always available.
     Chaucer’s Chantecleer made do with seven wives, but many poultry farmers suggest a ratio of twelve to fifteen hens for every rooster, giving the rooster a harem that might constitute an extravagant fantasy for a human. In “The Red Rooster” the primal power of the male is said to be required to return peace to the barnyard. The hounds cry out like Nature itself in misery during his absence.
     In the oldest parallel song, Charley Patton’s “Banty Rooster Blues (1929), the semiotic field associated with the rooster in American blues is established. The rooster is here defined as vigilant, enjoying power over women and the ensuing access to sexual pleasure without making himself vulnerable. The formulation would be shocking were it not shot through with self-reflective doubt and satire.
     The details are worth exploring as this text is fundamental to the imagery’s later development. The rooster is, first of all, vigilant. Just as he watches over his hens from a high vantage point and warns of approaching danger, he can do the same for the singer. But ambiguities have already proliferated, concealed by this simple description of a common animal’s behavior. The rooster is posted to the “backdoor,” though the front would be the ordinary approach for a stranger. Just as Dixon sang of the Little Red Rooster, Patton specifies a bantam bird, known for combativeness, sometimes considered comic for its belligerence combined with small stature. The size is a clue to the singer’s undercutting irony.
     The man of empty words is then compared to a rooster who does not crow. The singer may be bragging of his superiority to such men. In performing on stage, he is certainly crowing. Still, the persona’s identification with the rooster suggests that he may, at times at least, be unable to deliver on his proud promises.
     The next verse turns to the female, comparing a woman who will not do what he, the speaker, says to a hen who does not cackle when she lays. Though this line may not represent a functional agricultural value, the point is clear. The woman is to obey the man. The singer’s point is underscored as the line “What you want with a man, when he won't do nothin’ he say?” is succeeded by “What you want with a woman, when she won’t do nothin’ I say?”
     The will to power is so apparent as to be slightly ridiculous. In return for this absolute loyalty he offers nothing whatever, no support or commitment. She can expect to be left with nothing to show for her affair but his portrait on the wall, and inquiries about her vanished lover.
     For the moment, however, they can enjoy each other. Sexual contact is here expressed in fishing imagery. Patton’s line seems to be original, but the general area is marked by such classics as Henry Thomas’ exceedingly sophisticated and witty “Fishing Blues” (1928) which expresses through the imagery of angling a delicate complaint to an adulterous man: “I bet your life, your lovin' wife,/ Can catch more fish than you.” In Robert Petway’s “Catfish Blues” (1941) the singer imagines himself a catfish with his choice of women’s hooks on which to experience his Liebestod. In Patton’s song the fisherman expects a catch due to “the help I got.” This surely seems more to refer to his sexual equipment, analogous to the “hook in the water,” and the “cork on top,” rather than to his aide, the banty, long forgotten in the first stanza. Just as Thomas had assured his interlocutor that “any fish bite, you've got good bait” and Petway never doubted that the ladies would be after him, Patton’s appeal is to nature. How can a natural man fail?
     The song concludes with the lover associated with a faithful dog. He knows the dog’s bark, and he recognizes the woman during sexual activity in the dark. Patton has provided the key element in the rooster’s semiotic field only in the last stanza: the promise of ample sexuality, as available as one’s faithful hound.
     Succeeding versions added little to the meanings clustered around the rooster theme in the blues. Memphis Minnie’s song “If you see my rooster (please drive him home)” (1936) provides the hen’s perspective in a lament for the wandering rooster. His absence has led to an Arthurian wasteland (no eggs) that can only be resolved through the return of the heroic cock. Margie Day’s 1950 jump version of “Little Red Rooster” adds a more possessive hen’s advice: “clip his wings.” [4]
     These earlier songs formed the necessary context in which Willie Dixon’s belated electrified rendition can have meaning. Nearly all Dixon’s lines are derived from antecedent songs, yet his presentation is so elliptical as to puzzle the uninitiated. The rooster is a male ego preening, strutting, and signifying, searching to reconcile his wandering ways with his pursuit of love. The first four lines of Howlin’ Wolf’s recording of Dixon’s song employ Charley Patton’s conceit, but with a new trope. Whereas for Patton the lazy rooster is a negative example of a big talker with no action, he becomes for Dixon a pasha-like bird, enjoying his mastery of his domain. The curiously opposed and alternate hearings of Dixon’s line six balance so nicely that it matters little whether the barnyard is “stirred up” or quietly moving along.
     The wailing dogs of Dixon’s next verses likewise derive from Patton’s imagery. In the older song the dog’s bark is associated with the familiar body of the beloved, while in Dixon’s lyric that meaning is turned inside out. For Dixon the dogs are the clue in sound to the rooster’s having left his barnyard domesticity to go “on the prowl.” Their howling is a haunting indeterminate symbol, ominous and potent, still inhabited by traces of the earlier lines. As a soundtrack the dogs express the exciting but dangerous sense of the rooster “on the make.” The final stanza only reemphasizes this drive to reestablish peace using Memphis Minnie’s motif, asking that the rooster be driven home in the general cause of the household’s serenity.
     Willie Dixon drew on the earlier popular and folk material as well as the lived experience of a generation recently come to Chicago from Southern farms. Much of his original audience had first-hand experience of the proprietary behavior of roosters toward both females and territory. They appreciated the parallel with human actions, both those which might appear strong, heroic, and protective, and those which might seem laughable. His song is truly intertextual in that it can hardly be understood without reference to the composer’s sources and influences. Its lasting popularity



1. This association has led to the American preference of the word rooster. Related terms for penis include bird, surviving only in the expression “flipping the bird,” pecker, oiseau (or zizi) in French, uccelo in Italian, and countless others. The male chicken meaning of cock was in English reinforced by the “upward tilt” meaning. Oddly, through the adoption of a seventeenth century British usage of cock as a sort of passive obscene verb – “to want cocking, ” “I mean to get cocked.” – the word came to signify the female organ in Afro-American usage.
     The bird is conflated with the human face and with the male organ in the priapus gallinaceus in which the erect penis is the nose/beak and the balls are the wattles/cheeks. One of these in the Vatican museum is labeled “savior of the world”). Lorrayne Y. Baird’s “Priapus Gallinaceus: The Role of the Cock in Fertility and Eroticism in Classical Antiquity and the Middle Ages,” Studies in Iconography, vols. 7-8, University of Kentucky, 1981-82, pp. 81-111, provides a fascinating survey.
     On the other hand Marija Gimbutas documents the widespread cult of bird-headed goddesses in the Neolithic era. See her The Goddesses and Gods of Old Europe. Other animals might be used to similar effect, cf. for instance Slim Harpo’s “King Bee,” or the many songs using snakes and catfish.

2. The "Gab" as a Latent Genre in Medieval French Literature: Drinking and Boasting in the Middle Ages by John L. Grigsby.

4. Written by Edward and James Griffin and performed by Margie Day and the Griffin Brothers. Other related songs include Taj Mahal’s “Little Red Hen Blue”: “Well the little red hen said to the little red rooster/ Why don't you come 'round here like you used to?” and the anonymous humorous version.

“Oh mister Rooster!” said the little red hen,
“I haven't felt this way, since a god knows when...
but a big gruff voice said this ain't no Rooster.
And the little red hen knew the gander had goosed her.


This site includes a good many other essays treating blues songs as poetry. To see the others open the Index under the current month in the archive and consult section 5D “songs.”


The Red Rooster/Little Red Rooster by Dixon, performed by Howlin’ Wolf, Big Mama Thornton, performed later by Sam Cooke (with Ray Charles), the Doors, the Rolling Stones, The Grateful Dead, and Dixon himself.

I had a little red rooster
Too lazy to crow ‘fore day
I had a little red rooster
Too lazy to crow 'fore day
He kept ev’rything in the barnyard
Upset in every way (elsewhere recorded as “Eager settin’ a-ready to lay,” (picked up everything in the barnyard/either settled or ready to lay)

You know the dogs begin to bark
And the, the hounds
They begin to howl
You know the dogs they begin to bark
And the, the hounds
They begin to howl
You know my little red rooster’s gone
Know the little red rooster's on the prowl

(harmonica & instrumental)

Now, if you see my little red rooster
Somebody, please drive him home
Now, if you seen my little red rooster
Somebody, ple-eee-ase run ‘em home
There ain’t been no peace in the barnyard
Since my little red rooster been gone.


1929 Banty Rooster Blues (Patton)

I'm gonna buy me a banty, put him at my backdoor
I'm gonna buy me a banty, put him at my backdoor
So when he see a stranger a-comin’, he’ll flap his wings and crow

What you want with a rooster, he won't crow ‘fore day?
What you want with a rooster, he won't crow ‘fore day?
What you want with a man, when he won't do nothin’ he say?

What you want with a hen won’t, cackle when she lays?
What you want with a hen won’t, cackle when she lays?
What you want with a woman, when she won’t do nothin' I say?

Ah, take my picture, hang it up in Jackson wall
Ah, take my picture, hang it up in Jackson wall
Anybody asks you “What about it,” tell 'em “That's all I saw”

My hook’s in the water, and my cork’s on top
My hook’s in the water, and my cork’s on top
How can I lose, Lord, with the help I got

I know my dog anywhere I hear him bark
I know my dog anywhere I hear him bark
I can tell my rider, if I feel her in the dark


1936 If you see my rooster (please drive him home) (Memphis Minnie)

f you see my rooster
Please run him on back home
If you see my rooster
Please run him on back home
I haven't found no eggs in my basket
Since my rooster been gone

I heard my rooster crowing
This morning just about the break of day
I heard my rooster crowing
This morning just about the break of day

I guess that was the time he was making his getaway
I just found out how come my hens won't lay
I just found out how come my hens won't lay
Every time I look around my rooster have done gone away

Now play it, Bob
Tell me 'bout my rooster

I've got too many hens
For not to have no roosters on my yard
I've got too many hens
For not to have no roosters on my yard
And I don't know what's the matter
Something have done got 'em barred

Now, Bob, if you see my rooster
Please run him on back home
Now, Bob, if you see my rooster
Please run him on back home
I haven't found no eggs in my basket
Since my rooster been gone


jump version 1950 Little Red Rooster Edward and James Griffin Margie Day and the Griffin Brothers

Got a little red rooster and, man, how he can crow! (2x)
He's the boss of the barnyard any old place he goes.

He's a tiny little fella but he sure can strut his stuff, (2x)
And the way he loves me, man, he ain't no bluff.

If you want your red rooster and you want him all alone,
Just keep him off the road where these old hens like to roam,
'Cause your little red rooster may seem...(?),
But as soon as your back's turned, he'll make a fool of you.

If you got a good rooster, better clip his wings.
These old hens will get him and give him diamond rings.
Little red rooster, ain't gonna let him go.
I done clipped his wings; man, he can't fly no mo'.

“Spoonful” and the Accretion of Meaning

The texts of the songs follow the essay.

     While a rolling stone may indeed gather no moss, a poetic image can accumulate meaning with repeated usage in a way that adds semantic territory while it influences the interpretation of past poems. Both oral and written literary forms depend for their density of coded meaning on such accretion of meaning over time as identical or related images are repeatedly reused by one artist after another.
     “Spoonful” is a central image in the lyric world of the blues. “All I Want Is A Spoonful” by Papa Charlie Jackson was recorded in 1925, and “Spoonful Blues” in 1929 by Charley Patton, placing it in the deepest Delta tradition; Mississippi John Hurt sang used the phrase in “Coffee Blues”; in 1960 Howlin’ Wolf sang Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful” which then spread toward rock and roll in myriad versions, including those by the Paul Butterfield Blues Band, the Cream, and the Grateful Dead, not to mention the group that called itself the Lovin’ Spoonful. Originally signifying simply “a small amount,” the term comes in time to suggest explosive sexuality, high quality, and a junkie’s fix.
     In Jackson’s song the singer asks his love object for just a bit of loving, a spoonful. It is not necessary to “call or write,” her cooking is superfluous, love is his goal. He focuses on that moment of love-making, though it be snatched in passing: “Throw it out the window, I'll catch it ‘fore it falls.” The woman’s identity is secondary; in fact, “There ain’t no one woman got it all.” Through the entire lyric, it is the woman who gives the “spoonful,” that minimal dose of most satisfying love; the man can only plead. Here the phrase clearly emphasizes how little the persona is asking of her, and, accordingly, how churlish would be her refusal. The lady’s position, if Lucy Mae is an example, is equally undiscriminating: she will accept the singer or any handy “monkey man.” [1]
     For “spoonful” the locus classicus must be Charlie Patton’s 1929 recording. In this eloquent and fragmented performance, the speaker again asks his beloved for a spoonful, saying that it is “all I want in this creation.” Yet here her response mirrors his need. Women themselves are “goin’ crazy, every day in their life,” looking for that spoonful. And the ante has increased so that disorder (like that of the song itself), violence, legal retribution, even death may follow the quest. Spoken interjections like “wanna fight!” “would you slap me? Yes I will!” and “I’d kill him” disrupt the melody. The spoonful has caused men to do life in prison. The meaning, originally “a little bit,” has become charged with a powerful sexual implication that threatens at every moment to explode. The original common ground of vehicle and tenor – small quantity – has vanished in irony. Now it is all the greater marvel that a mere spoonful of sexual desire could be so powerful.
     When Mississippi John Hurt picked up the phrase in his “Coffee Blues,” he used the Maxwell House advertising phrase “good to the last drop” which had been introduced in 1917. [2] In Hurt’s song, this simply signifies the high and reliable quality of the coffee or loving, equally relished at the outset and the conclusion of the encounter. With his sweet faux naïf pose, Hurt no sooner introduces the advertising slogan than he identifies it with his beloved who would prepare coffee for him. Hurt’s charming lyrics, delivered with the easy-going lilt of his simple melodic lines, only touch on the disruptive potential of his theme. A preacher may lay his Bible down when tempted by a spoonful. When the persona’s beloved leaves for unknown reasons, he can only follow after and, speaking in a proper and polite manner (“please, ma'am”) ask like a tramp at the door for “just” a lovin’ spoonful. He concludes with praise of love, figured as a taste of Maxwell House coffee.
     Working with this rich bed of earlier associations, Willie Dixon’s “Spoonful” emphasizes the destructive potential of that little bit of love that constitutes the spoonful. “One little spoon” of “your precious love” is “good enough,” yet people “lie, “cry,” “die,” and “fight” about it. The repetitions of this simple ironic motif – so much can emerge from so little – at once marvel at human sexuality and fully participate within it. When asked, Dixon himself commented, “The idea of Spoonful was that it doesn't take a large quantity of anything to be good.”
     From the time of the Folk Revival in the late 50s and the rock version of hip in the late 60s, the popularity of blues standards spread to white audiences. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame “Spoonful” is one of the “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll.”
     New uses of the spoonful image arose among musicians and songwriters favoring the counter-cultural and the taboo. The old association with semen gained strength (Perhaps my own place in the structure of society is implied by the fact that I find this meaning valid, though secondary or tertiary, even in the old songs.) For the British critic Paul Oliver, the image refers to “sexual intercourse in a standing position.” [4] The use of spoonful to refer to a junkie’s spoon for cooking up his stuff is a natural extension of meaning for those whose greatest passion was not sexual. Though to Willie Dixon “People who think Spoonful was about heroin are mostly people with heroin ideas,” the image works. Dope and sex both offer the potential for bliss and for ruin. Life is full of disturbance, often over the smallest of things.
     As with other powerful images, this explication could proceed, in the most outstanding cases, almost without limit, until an entire vision of reality is suggested. The songs here cited indicate some elements of the semantic field of “spoonful.” The charm of all metaphors is their open-endedness. As any two things have some points in common and others in which they differ, any combination of objects will form a metaphor, creating a fabulous multiplication of potential for meaning. The fact that each of the songs in the “spoonful” lineage moved and excited listeners indicates that each found precision in the underdetermined image that resonated with lived experience and aesthetic sense in a way that ordinary discourse does not attempt to do.


1. A monkey man in Ida Cox’ song is a country boy, interchangeable with many others, who could never make it in Chicago. Peg Leg Powell sings in a different song “When God made me he didn't make no monkey man.” On the other hand the Rolling Stones proclaim “Well I am just a monkey man/ I’m glad you are a monkey, monkey woman too, babe.”

2. I find no prior use of that phrase (though to “milk to the last drop,” a fine down-home image with a quite different meaning, did exist).

3. In I am the Blues: the Willie Dixon Story, 148.

4. Screening the Blues, 198-9.


This site includes a good many other essays treating blues songs as poetry. To see the others open the Index under the current month in the archive and consult section 5D “songs.”



All I Want Is a Spoonful (Papa Charlie Jackson)

I told you once, this makes twice
That's last dime, don't you call or write
'Cause all I want, honey babe, is just a spoonful
Spoonful

You can brown your gravy, fry your steak
Sweet mama, don't make no mistake
'Cause all I want, honey babe, is just a spoonful
Spoonful

Just as sure as the winter follows the fall
There ain't no one woman got it all
'Cause all I want, honey babe, is just a spoonful
Spoonful

Lucy Mae's a woman that you can't understand
Well she's lookin' for you or a monkey man
'Cause all I want, honey babe, is just a spoonful
Spoonful

Now, cool kind mama, says you needn't to stall
Throw it out the window, I'll catch it 'fore it falls
'Cause all I want, sweet mama, is just a spoonful
Spoonful

I got the blues so bad, I couldn't sleep last night
My cool kind mama want to fuss and fight
'Cause all I want, sweet mama, is just a spoonful
Spoonful

Now I'm so glad that the dog can't talk
If you [can, keep him/it/'er staked, save a morning walk]
'Cause all I want, sweet mama, is just a spoonful
Spoonful

Now if you don't believe that I can run mighty fast
Ask that man that run me last
'Cause all I want, honey babe, is just a spoonful
Spoonful


A Spoonful (Charley Patton )

(Spoken: I'm about to go to jail about this spoonful)

In all a spoon', 'bout that spoon'
The women goin' crazy, every day in their life 'bout
A...

It's all I want, in this creation is a...
I go home (spoken: wanna fight! ) 'bout a...

Doctor's dyin' (way in Hot Springs! ) just 'bout a...
These women goin' crazy every day in their life 'bout
A...

Would you kill a man dead? (spoken: yes, I will! ) just
'Bout a...
Oh babe, I'm a fool about my...

(Spoken: Don't take me long! ) to get my...
Hey baby, you know I need my...

It's mens on Parchman (done lifetime) just 'bout a...
Hey baby, (spoken: you know I ain't long) 'bout my...

It's all I want (spoken: honey, in this creation) is
A...

I go to bed, get up and wanna fight 'bout a...
(Spoken: Look-y here, baby, would you slap me? Yes I
Will! ) just 'bout a...
Hey baby, (spoken: you know I'm a fool a-) 'bout my...

Would you kill a man? (spoken: Yes I would, you know
I'd kill him) just 'bout a...
Most every man (spoken: that you see is) fool 'bout
His...

(Spoken: You know baby, I need) that ol'...
Hey baby, (spoken: I wanna hit the judge 'bout a) 'bout
A...

(Spoken: Baby, you gonna quit me? Yeah honey! ) just
'Bout a...
It's all I want, baby, this creation is a...

(Spoken: look-y here, baby, I'm leavin' town! ) just
'Bout a...
Hey baby, (spoken: you know I need) that ol'...

(Spoken: Don't make me mad, baby! ) 'cause I want my...
Hey baby, I'm a fool 'bout that...

(Spoken: Look-y here, honey! ) I need that...
Most every man leaves without a...

Sundays' mean (spoken: I know they are) 'bout a...
Hey baby, (spoken: I'm sneakin' around here) and ain't
Got me no...
Oh, that spoon', hey baby, you know I need my


Coffee Blues (Mississipi John Hurt)

This is the 'Coffee Blues', I likes a certain brand Maxwell's House, it's good till the last drop Just like it says on the can, I used to have a girl Cookin' a good Maxwell House, she moved away Some said to Memphis and some said to Leland
But I found her, I wanted her to cook me Some good Maxwell's House, you understand? If I can get me just a spoonful of Maxwell's House Do me much good as two or three cups this other coffee
I've got to go to Memphis,
bring her back to Leland
I wanna see my baby
'bout a lovin' spoonful,
my lovin' spoonful
Well, I'm just got to have my lovin', I found her
Good mornin', baby,
how you do this mornin'?
Well, please, ma'am,
just a lovin' spoon,
just a lovin' spoonful
I declare, I got to have my lovin' spoonful
My baby packed her suitcase and she went away
I couldn't let her stay for my lovin',
my lovin' spoonful
Well, I'm just got to have my lovin'
Good mornin', baby, how you do this mornin'?
Well, please, ma'am, just a lovin' spoon,
just a lovin' spoonful I declare,
I got to have my lovin' spoonful
Well, the preacher in the pulpit,
jumpin' up and down
He laid his Bible down for his lovin'
in't Maxwell House all right?




Spoonful (Willie Dixon, sung also by Howlin’ Wolf and others)

It could be a spoonful of coffee
It could be a spoonful a-tea
But one little spoon
Of your precious love
Is good enough for me

Men lie about that spoonful
Some cry about that spoonful
Some die about that spoonful
Ev'rybody fight about a spoonful

That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful

It could be a spoonful a-water
To save you from the desert sand
But one spoon of lead
From my forty-five
Will save you from another man

Men lie-ii about that spoonful
Some cry-ii about that spoonful
Some die-ii about that spoonful
Ev'rybody fight about a spoonful

That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful
That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful

It could be a spoonful a-sugar
It could be a spoonful a-tea
But one little spoon
Of your precious love
Is good enough for me-ee

Men lie-ii about that spoonful
Some cry-ii about that spoonful
Some die-ii about that spoonful
Ev'rybody fight about a spoonful

That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful
A-that spoon, that spoon
That spoonful

That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful
That spoon, that spoon
That spoonful.