Thngs that I've Found on my Local's Jukebox # 6 - Howlin' Wolf

 

'And when a train goes by it's such a sad sound. It's such a sad thing.'

 

Howlin' Wolf has such a back catalogue but this song is always the song of his for me. Eventually it almost reached the Billboard Top 40 when re-released in 1964.

 

'Wolf said the song was inspired by watching trains in the night: "We used to sit out in the country and see the trains go by, watch the sparks come out of the smokestack. That was smokestack lightning.'

 

Pretty much as basic, straightforward and primal as it gets.

 

'Ah oh, smokestack lightnin'
Shinin' just like gold
Why don't ya hear me cryin'?
A whoo hoo, whoo hoo, whoo.'

 

I love this clip of him performing the song in the sixties to an appreciative white audience in England in 1964.