Music Blog

DOING IT CHICAGO STYLE

Nancy's Notes 🖊️🎶

For Jim’s Song Lyric Sunday, I’m celebrating the phenomenal voice and life of the legendary Etta James, whose heartfelt tunes and soulful pipes captured an enduring spot in American music history.

James was born Jamesetta Hawkins on January 25, 1938, in Los Angeles, CA. She grew from a gospel prodigy into a versatile singer of jazz, R&B, soul, blues and rock ‘n’ roll. 

James’ greatest success came after she signed with Chicago-based Chess Records in 1960. During her time with the company, which inspired the movie “Cadillac Records”, she produced pivotal works including “A Sunday Kind of Love,” “Trust in Me,” “At Last,” and “I’d Rather Go Blind” which I am showcasing today. These great songs are all part of her hits album, “The Chess Box” as well as highlighted in “The Essential Etta James”. 

“I’d Rather Go Blind”  written by Ellington Jordan and co-credited to Billy Foster and Etta James, is one of those blues songs you hear once and never forget. It was first recorded and released in 1967 by Etta James and has subsequently become regarded as a soul and blues classic.

“I’d Rather Go Blind” was written while Ellington Jordan, AKA “Fugi”, was in prison. Fugi poured his grief from being incarcerated into the song and in 2006 told an interviewer “I got tired of losing and being down. I was in prison and didn’t know when I was going to get out. I sat in a piano room and began to write”. For Etta James, the song was about being blind in her “love life” and her “personal ways”, she wrote in her autobiography “A Rage to Survive: The Etta James Story”.

Over the years, “I’d Rather Go Blind” has been covered by Rod Stewart, Christine McVie and Beyonce, among others. In her autobiography, Etta James wrote “Funny, but that’s a tune that’s deepened along with my life, its meaning growing more mysterious. Me and the song have grown old together.”

For many listeners, the two and half minutes of “I’d Rather Go Blind” convey so much of the emotion James must have been feeling. When Leonard Chess of Chess Records heard the song for the first time, he had to leave the room, crying.

This is the one and only Etta James and “I’d Rather Go Blind”.

NAR © 2023

Doing it Chicago Style

Lyrics

Something told me it was over
When I saw you and her talkin’
Something deep down in my soul said, ‘Cry, girl’
When I saw you and that girl walkin’ around

Whoo, I would rather, I would rather go blind, boy
Then to see you walk away from me, child, no

Whoo, so you see, I love you so much
That I don’t wanna watch you leave me, baby
Most of all, I just don’t, I just don’t wanna be free, no

Whoo, whoo, I was just, I was just, I was just
Sittin here thinkin’, of your kiss and your warm embrace, yeah
When the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now, baby
Revealed the tears that was on my face, yeah

Whoo and baby, baby, I’d rather, I’d rather be blind, boy
Then to see you walk away, see you walk away from me, yeah
Whoo, baby, baby, baby, I’d rather be blind…

Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Ellington Jordan / Billy Foster
I’d Rather Go Blind lyrics © Arc Music, Arc Music Corp, Urban Ideas Publishing

“I’d Rather Go Blind”
Single by Etta James
from the album Tell Mama
A-side“Tell Mama”
B-side“I’d Rather Go Blind”
Released1967
Recorded1967, FAME Studios, Muscle Shoals, Alabama 
GenreSoul Blues Deep Soul
Length     2:32
Label     Cadet 5578
Songwriters      Etta James, Ellington Jordan, Billy Foster
Producer(s)      Rick Hall

24 thoughts on “DOING IT CHICAGO STYLE”

  4. I knew this from the Chicken Shack version that was a hit here in the 60s. I’ve always loved Christine Perfect’s vocals on that (her maiden name) but this knocks spots off that cover!

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  6. Classic. There’s this whole raft of women from this kind of era who are a lot less well known than they ought to be. I looked at a sample chart once from around 1960 and only 10% of the acts were female, I think it goes to show the prejudice that existed.

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