SWEET HOME CHICAGO

"'Sweet Home Chicago'" is a popular blues standard in the twelve bar form. It was first recorded and is credited to have been written by Robert Johnson.^[1] Over the years the song has become one of the most popular anthems for the city of Chicago, Illinois, despite ambiguity in Johnson's original lyrics.
Johnson recorded the song during his first recording session in November 1936, and it was released on Vocalion Records (Recording Number 03601). He gives a stirring performance, with a driving guitar rythym and a high, near-falsetto vocal. It was a limited release race record, and was not a big-seller. The song's popularity grew only after Johnson's death in 1938.
Interestingly, the lyrics only obliquely refer to Chicago itself, in the song's refrain, where the song narrator pleads for a woman to go with him back to "that land of California/ my sweet home Chicago". Indeed, California is mentioned in the song more than Chicago, both during this refrain and in one of the stanzas ("I'm goin' to California/ two thousand miles away"). These perplexing lyrics have been a source of controversy for many years. In the 1960's and 1970's, some commentators speculated this was a geographical mistake on Johnson's part. This is clearly untrue, as Johnson was a highly sophisticated songwriter and used geographical references in a number of his songs. One interpretation is that Johnson intended the song to be a metaphorical description of an imagined paradise combining elements of the American north and west, far from the racism and poverty inherent to the Mississippi Delta of 1936.. Like Chicago, California was a common such destination in many Great Depression Era songs, books, and movies. A more sophisticated and humorous interpretation (and one more consistent with all of the lyrics) has the narrator pressuring a woman to leave town with him for Chicago, but his blatant geographic ignorance reveals his attempt at deceit. There is yet another unverified suggestion in Alan Greenberg's ''Love In Vain: A Vision of Robert Johnson'', that Johnson had a remote relative who lived in Port Chicago, California, which if true would add ambiguity as to which Chicago the lyrics are referring.
As the song grew to be a homage to Chicago, the original lyrics which refer to California were altered in most cover versions. The line "Back to the land of California" is changed to "Back to the same old place", and the line "I'm going to California" becomes "I'm going back to Chicago". This altered version dates back to pianist Roosevelt Sykes.
The authorship of the song is a matter of some dispute. The musical atmosphere of the 1930s blues and folk community lent itself to borrowing of music. Reportedly, songs recorded by bluesmen Scrapper Blackwell and Kokomo Arnold bear striking similarity to "Sweet Home Chicago", having been recorded years before. Leroy Carr's "Baby Don't You Love Me No More" (Scrapper on Piano) shares the rhythmic approach and the feel of the initial two verses. ^[2]
As of 2002, the copyright to the song was owned by businessman Stephen LaVere, who in 1973 convinced Johnson's half-sister Carrie Thompson to sign a contract splitting the royalties with LaVere.
The list of artists who have covered the song is immense, including Buddy Guy, Earl Hooker, Freddie King, Foghat, Status Quo, Johnny Otis and The Blues Brothers. LaVere once remarked "It's like 'When the Saints Go Marching In' to the blues crowd."

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References

1. Knopper, Steve. "'Sweet Home Chicago' leaves sour taste for some". ''Chicago Tribune'' 30 May 2002.
2. Leroy Carr "Baby Don't You Love Me No More" Vo 1261, C-2690-A, Chicago 1928/12/19.

External links

★ Original lyrics

★ Alternate lyrics