I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone Explained

I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?
Cover:	I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone cover.jpg
Caption:	Sheet music cover (1913)
Published:	1913
Genre:	Ragtime

"I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?" is a ragtime/blues song written by Shelton Brooks in 1913. Sometimes categorized as hokum,^[1] it led to an answer song written in 1915 by W.C. Handy, "Yellow Dog Rag", later titled "Yellow Dog Blues". Lines and melody from both songs show up in the 1920s and 1930s in such songs as "E. Z. Rider", "See See Rider", "C. C. Rider", and "Easy Rider Blues".

"I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?"

Written for the vaudeville stage, the lyrics tell of a Susie Johnson who bets on a horse race using a tip from Jockey Lee, who subsequently runs off with her money.

First verse:

Chorus:

"I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?" was first popularized on the vaudeville stage by Sophie Tucker. It is most noted for its performance in a 1933 movie, She Done Him Wrong, in which Mae West sang it in a suggestive manner. It is perhaps this performance which gave it its hokum reputation.^[2]

"Yellow Dog Rag"/"Yellow Dog Blues"

Yellow Dog Rag
Cover:	Yellow-Dog-Rag-1915.jpg
Caption:	Sheet music cover (1915)
Published:	1915
Genre:	Ragtime

In 1915, W.C. Handy wrote an answer song to "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?" which he called "Yellow Dog Rag."^[3] "Yellow Dog Rag" sold poorly. In 1919, he retitled it "Yellow Dog Blues" to take advantage of the popularity of blues, after which it sold moderately well.^[4] His song explains what became of Jockey Lee.

The version quoted is how Bessie Smith sang it in her well-known 1925 recording:

First verse:Chorus:

(1) (Rural Free Delivery or RFD as it was popularly called was a service by the post office to deliver mail directly to rural farm families)

(2) a "side door Pullman car" was hobo slang for a box car with the cargo door open which made it easy to "bum" a ride.

The "Yellow Dog" was the local name for the Yazoo Delta Railroad; the "Southern" is the much larger Southern Railway.

"Yellow Dog Blues" has been recorded a number of times, mostly as an instrumental, and has become a traditional jazz standard.Berl Olswanger and the Berl Olswanger Orchestra included its instrumental version on their album Berl Olswanger Orchestra with the Olswanger Beat (1964).

See also

• See See Rider
• Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad
• List of train songs

Bibliography

• Louvish, Simon. Mae West: It Ain't No Sin. St. Martin's Griffin (2007).
• Rubin, Louis Decimus. Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog: On Writers and Writing. University of Missouri Press (2005).
• Wald, Elijah. Escaping the Delta: Robert Johnson and the Invention of the Blues. Harper Collins (2004)
• Wintz, Cary D.; Finkelman, Paul. Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance. Routledge (2004).

Notes and References

1. Wintz, Encyclopedia of the Harlem Renaissance, Page 186: "The double-entendre song "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone" (1913) was popularized in performances and recordings by both Sophie Tucker and Mae West."
2. Louvish, Mae West, Page 221: "When Mae sashays on to belt out 'I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone' - ostensibly a song about a jockey - the lust and lasciviousness of the triple-meanings shimmers in the air."
3. Rubin, Where the Southern Cross the Yellow Dog, page 31: "Handy said that he wrote the "Yellow Dog Blues" after hearing a black musician singing a blues song containing the words of the title at the railroad depot at Tutwiler, Mississippi, in 1902."
4. Wald, Escaping the Delta, page 283: "When the popular taste for blues asserted itself I took out that old number and changed its name to 'Yellow Dog Blues.' Other than the name, I altered nothing."