Going Down Slow
| "Going Down Slow" | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Single by St. Louis Jimmy | |
| A-side | "Monkey Face Blues" |
| Released | 1942 |
| Format | 10-inch 78 rpm record |
| Recorded | Chicago, November 11, 1941 |
| Genre | Blues |
| Length | 3:10 |
| Label | Bluebird (no. 8889B) |
| Songwriter(s) | James B. Oden a.k.a. St. Louis Jimmy |
"Goin' Down Slow" or "Going Down Slow" is a blues song composed by American blues singer St. Louis Jimmy Oden. It is considered a blues standard and "one of the most famous blues of all". "Goin' Down Slow" has been recorded by many blues and other artists, notably Howlin' Wolf and Bobby Bland, whose rendition was a hit in both the Billboard R&B and Pop singles charts.
"Goin' Down Slow" "is the lament of a high roller who is dying":
I have had my fun, if I don't get well no more (2×)
My health is failing me, and I'm goin' down slow
Please write my mother, tell her the shape I'm in (2×)
Tell her to pray for me, forgive me for my sin
The song is a moderately slow-tempo twelve-bar blues, notated in 4
4 or common time in the key of B. Oden, as St. Louis Jimmy, recorded it in Chicago on November 11, 1941. It was released as a single by Bluebird Records and featured Oden's vocal with accompaniment by Roosevelt Sykes on piano and Alfred Elkins on "imitation" bass.
"Goin' Down Slow" was Oden's most famous song and he later recorded several versions, including in 1955 for Parrot Records and in 1960 for Bluesville Records. He and Sykes continued their musical partnership well into the 1960s.
Howlin' Wolf recorded "Goin' Down Slow" for Chess Records in 1961. Wolf (vocal and guitar) recorded the song as a Chicago blues, with Henry Gray (piano), Hubert Sumlin and Jimmy Rogers (guitars), Willie Dixon (bass), and Sam Lay (drums). Dixon also provided a spoken narrative, alternating with Wolf's vocal passages:
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