Look Who it Was Random video

Joan Baez - I Know You Rider [HD]

2,291 views · Published 20 January 2018 · 3:46 · Indexed 27 October 2026

Channel: Gary Larson · 2018 · People & Blogs

Watch on YouTube

Joan Baez sings the traditional blues song 'I Know You Rider'. This is a bonus track on the 2001 reissue of her self-titled 1960 Vanguard album. The song lyrics are below along with some notes on the song and album from Wikipedia.

[CD/25-Images] 

I Know You Rider

Singer - Joan Baez

I know you rider
Gonna miss me when I'm gone
I know you rider
You're gonna miss me when I'm gone

Gonna miss your pretty mama
From rolling in your arms
I love you rider
And I know you must love me some

I love you rider
And I know you must love me some
You put your arms around me
Like a circle round the sun

I lay down last night
And I tried to take my rest
I lay down last night
And I tried take my rest

My heart was ramblin'
Like a wild geese in the West
Going to the river
I'm gonna sit down on the log

I'm going to the river
I'm gonna sit down on the log
If I can't be your honey
Well I'll sure be your dog

Sun's gonna shine
In my backyard someday
Sun's gonna shine
In my backyard someday

The west winds gonna rise up
And blow my blues away
The west winds gonna rise up
And blow my blues away

Songwriter:  Traditional blues, arranged by Joan Baez

[Lyrics transcribed by Gary Larson]

Wikipedia states:

"I Know You Rider" (also "Woman Blues" and "I Know My Rider") is a traditional blues song that has been adapted by numerous artists. Modern versions can be traced back to Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Deceitful Brownskin Blues", which was released as a single in 1927. It later appears in the 1934 book, American Ballads and Folk Songs, by the noted father-and-son pair of musicologists and folklorists, John Lomax and Alan Lomax. The book notes that "An eighteen-year old black girl, in prison for murder, sang the song and the first stanza of these blues." The Lomaxes then added a number of verses from other sources and named it "Woman Blue". The music and melody are similar to Lucille Bogan's "B.D. Woman Blues" (ca. 1935), although the lyrics are completely different.

In the mid-1950s, traditional musician Bob Coltman found the song in the Lomax book, arranged it and began singing it frequently around Philadelphia and New England circa 1957-1960. In 1959, Coltman taught it to Tossi Aaron who recorded it in 1960 for her LP Tossi Sings Folk Songs & Ballads on Prestige International. Joan Baez recorded a version for her 1960 debut album on Vanguard Records but the track was not released until 2001. Throughout the early 1960s the song gained popularity through folk performers, most notably The Kingston Trio, who included the song "Rider" on their album Sunny Side! in 1963. So did The Big 3, an American folk trio that featured Cass Elliot. Folk singer Judy Roderick also recorded an influential version of the song under the title "Woman Blue" and it became the title track of her second album, recorded and released by Vanguard in 1965. British folk singer John Renbourn recorded a version of the song (titled "I Know My Babe") and it was included on his 1967 solo album, Another Monday.

In 1983 Baez described the making of the album to Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder:

It took four nights. We were in some big, smelly ballroom at a hotel on Broadway, way up by the river. We couldn't record on Wednesday nights because they played bingo there. I would be down there on this dirty old rug with two microphones, one for the voice and one for the guitar. I just did my set; it was probably all I knew. Just put 'em down. I did "Mary Hamilton" once, that was it. That's the way we made 'em in the old days. As long as a dog didn't run through the room or something, you had it. [Kurt Loder, Rolling Stone, issue no. 393]

More from this channel