The Violent Femmes song that references a classic Muddy Waters track
In the pantheon of alternative rock pioneers, Violent Femmes rarely get the credit they deserve. At a time when bands like R.E.M. and The Dream Syndicate were just beginning to find their signature sounds, Violent Femmes already had a legendary debut album filled with iconic tracks. When folk, punk, and jangle pop were converging to create alt-rock, Violent Femmes already had the form down a full decade before it broke into the mainstream.
That might be strange, considering the way the Milwaukee trio approached music. With mostly acoustic instruments, a minimalist percussion set-up, and an ad-hoc approach to harmony vocals, Violent Femmes could probably best be described as “folk-punk”. But thanks to the melodies and lyrics of singer Gordon Gano, which largely focused on teenage frustrations on their debut, Violent Femmes created an entirely new sound that would be referenced (and stolen from) by generations of bands that followed them.
But the band weren’t above a little bit of thievery themselves. Along with iconic tracks like ‘Blister in the Sun’ and ‘Add It Up’, ‘Gone Daddy Gone’ was one of the tracks that made Violent Femmes an essential album to own for any burgeoning alt-rock fan. Featuring one of the band’s catchiest choruses and some wild xylophone work from bassist Brian Ritchie, ‘Gone Daddy Gone’ remains a cornerstone of any Violent Femmes show. It also features a verse not written by Gano, the band’s songwriter.
During the song’s final verse, Gordon recites a verse from the classic Muddy Waters song ‘I Just Want To Make Love To You’ nearly verbatim. Waters sings, “I can tell by the way you switch and walk / I can tell by the way that you baby talk / I can tell by the way that you treat your man / I could love you, baby, it’s a crying shame”, four lines that Gano poaches word for word on ‘Gone Daddy Gone’.
Originally written by blues bassist/songwriter Willie Dixon, everyone from Etta James to The Rolling Stones has recorded ‘I Just Want To Make Love To You’ over the years. It’s one of the best-known songs of the blues, and considering how Waters was a Chicago blues pioneer, it doesn’t seem far-fetched to see the geographically close Milwaukee musicians in Violent Femmes taking a small bit from Waters’ classic in their own track.
Dixon is a credited songwriter on ‘Gone Daddy Gone’, and on the 2005 compilation record Permanent Record: The Very Best of Violent Femmes, the song’s title is extended to ‘Gone Daddy Gone/I Just Want To Make Love To You’ in order to accommodate what was possibly a request from Dixon’s publishers. There’s a chance that the band did it willingly, but on the band’s post-2005 compilations, ‘Gone Daddy Gone’ has ‘I Just Want To Make Love To You’ attached to its title.
Check out ‘Gone Daddy Gone’ down below.
