What is “Yellow Dog Blues”?

W. C. Handy’s composition about a Delta railroad junction (the “Yellow Dog”); Bessie Smith’s 1925 recording is a classic-blues landmark.

Yellow Dog Blues — Bessie Smith, 1925

Yellow Dog Blues

’s composition about a Delta railroad junction (the “Yellow Dog”); ’s 1925 recording is a classic-blues landmark.

Handy published it in 1915 as “Yellow Dog Rag,” then retitled it “Yellow Dog Blues” in 1919 when the word itself was selling. The title is a railroad nickname: the Yellow Dog was the Yazoo Delta line, and “where the Southern cross’ the Dog” is the junction at Moorhead, Mississippi — the same line Handy remembered hearing a guitarist sing at Tutwiler around 1903. The lyric is an answer-song: it tells what became of the “easy rider” from Shelton Brooks’s 1913 hit. Bessie Smith’s 1925 Columbia recording is the classic-blues landmark; the song is older than the blues industry that later claimed it.

Lyrics

English — Handy, 1914

W. C. Handy — published as “Yellow Dog Rag” (1914), retitled “Yellow Dog Blues” (1919)

Public domain in the United States. Dialect and period wording are as printed on the 1914 sheet.

E'er since Miss Susan Johnson lost her Jockey, Lee,

There has been much excitement, more to be;

You can hear her moaning night and morn.

“Wonder where my Easy Rider's gone?”

Cablegrams come of sympathy,

Telegrams go of inquiry,

Letters come from down in “Bam”,

And ev'ry where that Uncle Sam

Has even a rural delivery.

All day the phone rings, but it's not for me,

At last good tidings fill our hearts with glee,

This message comes from Tennessee:

Refrain

Dear Sue, your Easy Rider struck his burg today

On a southboun' rattler sidedoor Pullman car.

Seen him here an' he was on the hog.

(spoken) The smoke was broke, no joke, not a jitney on him.

Easy Riders got a stay way,

So he had to vamp it but the hike aint far.

He's gone where the Southern cross' the Yellow Dog.

I know the Yellow Dog District like a book,

Indeed I know the route that Rider took;

Ev'ry crosstie, bayou, burg and bog.

Way down where the Southern cross' the Dog,

Money don't zactly grow on trees,

On cotton stalks it grows wid ease;

No racehorse, racetrack no grandstand

Is like Old Beck and Buckshot land,

Down where the Southern cross' the Dog.

Every kitchen there is a cabaret,

Down there the boll wevil works while the darkies glee,

This Yellow Dog Rag the livelong day.

Source: Wikisource, “Yellow Dog Rag” (Pace & Handy, 1914)

Lyrics are reproduced briefly for commentary and teaching, with attribution and a link to the source. They are not a substitute for the publisher’s edition.

Yellow Dog Blues

Bessie Smith, 1925

Lyrics

English — Handy, 1914

Where it belongs

Where it comes from