Smokestack Lightning
Cleoma
weekend at the Bluff Country Gathering and it was really fun! We were
wondering about the meaning of the phrase "smokestack lightning" which shows up
in a Mississippi Sheiks song (and later on in Howling Wolf's song of that name
which I always assumed was derived from the Sheiks' version).
Lyle did a bit of research, and came up with the following. Does anyone have
anything to add? Does anyone know of an earlier example of this phrase which
predates the Sheiks' "Stop & Listen" (1930)?
Thanks,
Suzy T.
Lyle wrote:
2. The meaning of "Smokestack Lightning." I found the following from 1997 with
a Google newsgroup search. The complete thread had some ideas about the term
that made no sense at all (static electricity discharges between smokestacks of
two trains meeting each other, lightning striking a factory smokestack, etc.),
but this one seems believable.
Lyle
From: Ray Astbury. (RAST...@MACOLLAMH.UCD.IE)
Subject: Smokestack Lightning
View: Complete Thread (21 articles)
Original Format
Newsgroups: bit.listserv.blues-l
Date: 1997/12/19
Some time ago there was a discussion on the list of the meaning of this term.
Last week on BBC Radio 2 Paul Jones interviewed Marshall Chess. The following
is a transcription of the relevant bit:-
PJ Let's talk a bit about "Smokestack Lightning". What about that
title?
MC Well, I myself as a kid, I didn't know what that meant, what's
"Smokestack Lightning". So I asked Howling Wolf. He said to me, 'Well, when
you were young in the South,' he said, 'there wasn't any TV, there wasn't any
radio. You just really were alone at night. And if there was a railroad
nearby, you looked for the smokestack lightning.' I said, 'What's that?' He
said, 'Well, in those days the trains ran on coal. You could lay around at
night and, if a train went by, you'd see the sparks comin' out of the chimney
of the train and we called that smokestack lightning.'
Ray Astbury
To reply to this posting, remove "nojunk" from my email address.
Carl Baron
from <http://www.coloradobluegrass.org/blues.htm>
Dobbs, a short-dress, big-legged woman from Coahoma County, said it is not she but
Jackson who should be forced to defend himself. According to Dobbs, Jackson
frequently has devilment on his mind, staying up until all hours of the night
rolling dice and drinking smokestack lightning. "Six nights out of seven, he goes
off and gets his swerve on while I sit at home by myself. Then he comes knocking on
my door at 4 a.m., expecting me to rock him until his back no longer has any bone,"
Dobbs said. "Is that any way for a man to treat his woman? I don't want to, but if
he keeps doing me wrong like this, I am going to take my lovin' and give it to
another man." Added Dobbs: "Skipbone Jackson is going to be the death of me."
http://www.shepherd-express.com/shepherd/21/32/night_and_day/night_and_day.html
Take your delirious title-track, for starters. It's about you almost dying of
pneumonia during an enforced hospital stay after only a quarter-century of daily
imbibing white lightning and smokestack lightning to the top of your bent. Thank
God that that near-death epiphany kicked your butt back into this vale of tears for
a little while longer.
If I can get to the library, I'll check out the book
Smokestack lightning : adventures in the heart of barbecue country by Lolis Eric
Elie ; photographs by Frank Stewart
and see if it says where the title comes from.
Carl
Brittles
wrote:
<< We were wondering about the meaning of the phrase "smokestack lightning"
which shows up in a Mississippi Sheiks song (and later on in Howling Wolf's
song of that name which I always assumed was derived from the Sheiks' version).
>>
I've always assumed it's a typical blues euphemism of (ahem...) an erotic
nature - similar to such phrases as "dust my broom", "I've got a rock in my
sock", "lovin' spoonful", etc.
But maybe that's just my overactive imagination... What would Freud say? ;-)
Best-
Ed Britt
Please Remove *UNSPAM* from my address, to e-mail me.
Tim Dellinger
>My searches lead me to believe that it's more likely a drink, like White Lightning.
>from <http://www.coloradobluegrass.org/blues.htm>
>Dobbs, a short-dress, big-legged woman from Coahoma County...
Just so you know, this story was stolen from the satire newspaper The Onion.
www.theonion.com
Their reporting is, well, creative.
--
Tim Dellinger www.ews.uiuc.edu/~tdelling
tdel...@uiuc.edu
Lyle Lofgren
> My searches lead me to believe that it's more likely a drink, like White Lightning.
>
> from <http://www.coloradobluegrass.org/blues.htm>
> Dobbs, a short-dress, big-legged woman from Coahoma County, said it is not she but
> Jackson who should be forced to defend himself. According to Dobbs, Jackson
> frequently has devilment on his mind, staying up until all hours of the night
> rolling dice and drinking smokestack lightning. "Six nights out of seven, he goes
> off and gets his swerve on while I sit at home by myself. Then he comes knocking on
> my door at 4 a.m., expecting me to rock him until his back no longer has any bone,"
> Dobbs said. "Is that any way for a man to treat his woman? I don't want to, but if
> he keeps doing me wrong like this, I am going to take my lovin' and give it to
> another man." Added Dobbs: "Skipbone Jackson is going to be the death of me."
>
> http://www.shepherd-express.com/shepherd/21/32/night_and_day/night_and_day.html
> Take your delirious title-track, for starters. It's about you almost dying of
> pneumonia during an enforced hospital stay after only a quarter-century of daily
> imbibing white lightning and smokestack lightning to the top of your bent. Thank
> God that that near-death epiphany kicked your butt back into this vale of tears for
> a little while longer.
>
Carl, I can't comment about the second citation, but the first one is
from a hilarious parody about blues cliches that was originally
published in The Onion. Nice try, but no cigar for that one.
Lyle
Steve and Trish
does SL mean
i'm not sure it needs a meaning...if you listen to Wolf sing and enunciate
the sounds, the collection of sibilance, drawled vowels and spiky consonants
is music in itself...
see ya at mt airy
s.
--
______________________________________
Steve Senderoff & Trish Vierling
"...Ya run your E string down oh, I don't know, about three frets...anyway,
it corresponds to the third note on the A string...here's ya tuning..."
.........Tommy Jarrell
http://steventrish.home.mindspring.com/webpage_files/start.html
"Brittles" <brit...@aol.comUNSPAM> wrote in message
news:20030521094911...@mb-m14.aol.com...
Joseph Scott
the scene for the more important bit of the stanza, which is that he
found his baby laying on the cooling floor, that is, if it's meant to
be literal, he found his woman dead in a slaughterhouse.
Wolf recorded "Smokestack Lightning" for RPM in Arkansas under the
title "Crying At Daybreak" first, and then five years later recorded
it for Chess in Chicago under the better-known title -- same tune.
(The RPM version is the superior performance in my opinion.) Now, the
so-called "Crying At Daybreak" on RPM, with its theme of him crying,
that was a "sequel" record that Wolf came up with to try to match the
success of his previous hit "Moaning At Midnight" with its theme of
him moaning. So I think what probably happened was that the word
"crying" in the Sheiks song ("... crying, I found my baby laying on
the cooling floor") made him think of that particular floating lyric
when he was throwing together various floating lyrics for his crying
song for RPM. (He changed the Sheiks' "... don't you hear me talking
pretty mama" bit to "... don't you hear me crying.") And then a few
years later when he was even more popular and needed to come up with
lots of material for Chess, he rerecorded the song, with no one
involved worrying terribly much about what title they put on it.
Joseph Scott
Lyle Lofgren
> I think in the Sheiks song the smokestack lightning is just setting
> the scene for the more important bit of the stanza, which is that he
> found his baby laying on the cooling floor, that is, if it's meant to
> be literal, he found his woman dead in a slaughterhouse.
No, Joseph, she's lying on the cooling board, just like in quite a few
other blues songs. Someone more familiar than I with southern funeral
practices would have to tell us what a cooling board looks like and
how it was used.
Lyle
Joseph Scott
but all I had to do is listen to it properly just now and yes he sings
"cooling board."
Joseph Scott
Gregg Kimball
"Stop and Listen Blues" (their version of Tommy Johnson's "Big Road
Blues") is actually "the smokestack is black and the bell, it shines
like gold." I wish I had it here right now so I could give it a
listen. I believe that the same line appears in a Charlie Patton
song.
Gregg Kimball
j_ns...@msn.com (Joseph Scott) wrote in message news:<a2d52481.03052...@posting.google.com>...
paul stewart
is:
Ah, smokestack black, baby, bells is shinin' like gold
Now don't you hear me, pretty mama
Ah, smokestack black, bells they shinin' like gold
[OK 8807, Feb 1930]
The 'is' in the first line could be 'they'.
The Patton one is in stanza 5 of his 'Moon Going Down':
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
(Spoken): Doesn't it, boy, you know, and it looks good to me
[Pm 13014, May 1930]
--paulS.
Darwin, Australia.
"Gregg Kimball" <gkim...@lva.lib.va.us> wrote in message
news:88f64988.03052...@posting.google.com...
paul stewart
is:
Ah, smokestack black, baby, bells is shinin' like gold
Now don't you hear me, pretty mama
Ah, smokestack black, bells they shinin' like gold
[OK 8807, Feb 1930]
The 'is' in the first line could be 'they'.
The Patton one is in stanza 5 of his 'Moon Going Down':
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
(Spoken): Doesn't it, boy, you know, and it looks good to me
[Pm 13014, May 1930]
--paulS.
Darwin, Australia.
"Gregg Kimball" <gkim...@lva.lib.va.us> wrote in message
news:88f64988.03052...@posting.google.com...
paul stewart
is:
Ah, smokestack black, baby, bells is shinin' like gold
Now don't you hear me, pretty mama
Ah, smokestack black, bells they shinin' like gold
[OK 8807, Feb 1930]
The 'is' in the first line could be 'they'.
The Patton one is in stanza 5 of his 'Moon Going Down':
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
(Spoken): Doesn't it, boy, you know, and it looks good to me
[Pm 13014, May 1930]
--paulS.
Darwin, Australia.
"Gregg Kimball" <gkim...@lva.lib.va.us> wrote in message
news:88f64988.03052...@posting.google.com...
paul stewart
--paulS.
"paul stewart" <csqu...@bigpond.net.au> wrote in message
news:73Bza.264$ES....@news-server.bigpond.net.au...