Hell Hound On My Trail

Dear Reader,

Robert Johnson (1911-1938) was an itinerant blues singer who lived and worked primarily in the Mississippi delta. Johnson’s recording career consisted only of two sessions over a period of seven months, but his songs have had a lasting influence on American music. Today, he is known as the King of the Delta Blues.

Johnson was a master with the guitar. He could play various styles and with a level of complexity that was unmatched in his time. He also used his distinctive voice and microtonality to convey powerful emotions with a precise, complex delivery. As Keith Richards would later remark, “Johnson was like an orchestra all by himself.”

Johnson’s lyrics are equally interesting, and one of his songs—”Hell Hound On My Trail”—is the subject of today’s newsletter.

Background

Johnson recorded “Hell Hound On My Trail” in June 1937. It is probably his best-known work, though the circumstances of its composition—like most of Johnson’s life—remain shrouded in mystery. Often the song is associated with a well-known legend about Johnson’s life, in which he met the Devil at a crossroads in Mississippi and agreed to sell his soul in exchange for becoming a master of the blues.

What It Offers

There’s a lot of discussion about the relationship between song lyrics and poetry. Lyrics can be, but are not always, poetry; and regardless, they are still literature—as Bob Dylan’s Nobel Prize demonstrates.

I love Robert Johnson’s lyrics, and particularly “Hell Hound,” because of how interesting they are, even without the music. The speaker is on the run. That much is clear. But whether he is being chased by demons, would-be lynchers (Johnson was black), or some other pursuer, it’s impossible to tell. The sense of foreboding, however, is unmistakable. The wind is rising. The leaves are trembling. Powder is being sprinkled outside his door (which shows if anyone has come by to scope the place). But in between all of his moving, he’s remembering happier times with his sweetheart.

These juxtapositions, the objective correlatives of the wind and leaves, the use of repetition to emphasize the speaker’s movement, the odd appearance of Christmastime in the third stanza, and of course the simile of blues falling down like hail—all are relayed through evocative, specific, deliberate, and engaging language. Few poems can match this visceral, weird power. Few poets can match Robert Johnson.

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