The 500 - #282 - Folk Singer - Muddy Waters

I was inspired by a podcast called The 500 hosted by Los Angeles-based comedian Josh Adam Meyers. His goal, and mine, is to explore Rolling Stone Magazine's 2012 edition of The 500 Greatest Albums of All Time. 

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Album: #282

Album Title: Folk Singer

Artist: Muddy Waters

Genre: Acoustic Blues

Recorded: Tel Mar Recording Studios, Chicago, Illinois

Released: January, 1964

My age at release: Not born

How familiar was I with it before this week: One Song

Is it on the 2020 list? No

Song I am putting on my Spotify Playlist: Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

Pop music is full of songs about school-age romance and, when you are a teen, the lyrics fit neatly into your adolescent world view. That makes sense. The songs are written so teens can connect to and identify with them. However, the time comes when you realize an adult male has probably written or sung some of those lyrics, and the songs can become downright creepy.

A 33-year-old Ringo Starr crooning "You're 16, you're beautiful, and you're mine" comes to mind. A song that was a hit for 26-year-old Johnny Burnett in 1960, was penned by Disney songwriting legends The Sherman Brothers, who were in their mid-forties.

Revival-rockabilly legend Brian Setzer belting out the Stray Cats' hit (She's) Sexy and 17, a song he wrote at 23, is a tad awkward when he continued performing it well into his forties. To his credit, the now sexagenarian retired it from his setlist nearly two decades ago.

Granted, these are songs written "for" young people, even if they are not written or performed "by" teenagers. (She's) Sexy and 17 was released when I was 17 and the lyrics fit into my high school dating world.

Many teen-targeted songs celebrate the innocence, excitement and wonder of romance and infatuation. When discussing lyrics and poetry, I frequently remind my Grade 7 students that the "speaker" in a poem is not necessarily the "writer". When Setzer sings "She's sexy and 17/my little rock and roll queen", he is clearly speaking from the perspective of a high-school boy. He even references his chums and pranks they play on the teacher later in the song. A poem or lyrics can be written from the perspective of a man, woman, child, dog or even a bull, tree or mirror. For the “ancients” beyond 20, the songs can be a nostalgic reminder of their own teen years.

The Mirror, by Sylvia Path features a mirror as the speaker

There are also songs intentionally written sarcastically or provocatively to connect to a larger conversation about lust, impropriety or aging -- Don't Stand So Close To Me (The Police) and Aqualung (Jethro Tull) come to mind.

The perverse, voyeuristic, pedophile character "Aqualung"
from Jethro Tull's  1971 record.

Don't get me wrong, there are some lyrics out there that move way beyond creepy into borderline criminality. A troubling example can be found in the lyrics from Walk This Way (Aerosmith), Jailbait (Ted Nugent) or My Sharona (The Knack).

Which brings us to Good Morning Little Schoolgirl from this week's record, Folk Singer by Muddy Waters, pegged at #282 on The 500. Released in 1964, it was the fourth studio record from the legendary American blues singer. Often called "the father of modern Chicago blues", Waters was born McKinley Morganfield near Clarksdale, Mississippi, in 1913.

Raised on a plantation during the Segregation Era, he began playing guitar and harmonica at an early age, emulating local blues artists Edward "Son" House and Robert Johnson. He was raised by his grandmother after his mother died, shortly after his birth. It was grandma who nicknamed him “Muddy” because he loved to sit along the muddy banks of a nearby river, strumming his guitar.

Waters (1960s)

Folk Singer is Waters' only acoustic-guitar based record comprising both original material and a few blues standards, including the aforementioned Good Morning Little Schoolgirl, written in 1937 by Sonny Boy Williamson (born; John Lee Williamson). The song includes the seemingly inappropriate and troubling lyrics:

"Good morning little schoolgirl,

Can I go home with you?

Tell your Mama and Papa,

Big be schoolboy too.

Baby, I won't bore you

I won't bore you all night long

Baby, I wanna ball you

I wanna ball you all night long"

This is a song with which I have long been familiar, although I first heard it as a Yardbirds' version when I purchased the Eric Clapton Crossroads four-CD, box set in 1988. Even then, I found the lyrics alarming. However, I dismissed it as a "product of a different generation" and just enjoyed the guitar playing.

It turns out that my supposition of the record being a generational matter was  correct, a deeper investigation is required to understand this song in context. In his Obsidian Tea Blog post, Good Morning Little Schoolgirl - Creepy or Sweet, author Grey Armstrong noted that lyricist Williamson's cultural milieu does indeed matter. For a start, "black and white speakers don't use the same words to mean the same thing at times".

Armstrong posited that "Little", or "Li'l" in African American communities, often refers to the age of a person in relation to the speaker. Consequently, a 50-year-old mother may refer to her 20-year-old son and his chums as "you and your little (li'l) friends". Additionally, "schoolgirl" is often understood in white culture to be someone who is younger than 12. In black communities, particularly in the 1930 (90 years or so ago), a school girl could be in her late teens.

However, in playing Devil’s Advocate, was Armstrong (or am I?) leaning into “apologist” territory? After all, high school education for rural students in the 1930s was considered a luxury. This impacted black children during the Jim Crow era even more. According to an article by the American Federation of Teachers, “very few of the black children who finished grade school in the 1930s had the chance to attend high school. In 1932, only 14 percent of those between 15 and 19 years old were enrolled in public secondary schools in southern states.”

The lyrics are troublesome also because of the following line:

"Tell your Mama and Papa/Big be schoolboy, too".

Uh-oh!?

Can that be interpreted as encouraging the girl to lie to her parents about her potential beau's age or life situation?

One would think that if the lie is going to work, the girl’s admirer must appear to be of school age when he meets her parents. The writer, Williams, was 23 when the song was recorded -- but it may have been composed years earlier.

It is clear from Armstrong’s post (and should be clear from my approach to this thorny topic) that we are not trying to justify anything criminal or ameliorate any abhorrent behaviour. In the end, the answer has been lost to time. Sonny Boy Williams died in 1948 at the age of 34. Regardless, the meaning of the song rests in the thoughts of the listener. Much like I did when I first heard the track in 1988, I dismiss the lyrics as a product of a different time and just enjoy an uptempo, blues number performed by a legend, Muddy Waters on a record that is a terrific listen.