Yeah, She Got ’Em for Sale

I’ve had a hankering to hear this song again for a week or two now, can’t even remember why. It’s a song to lighten a black mood, at least a little bit – sly & spry, winking away at the appetites that make us us and the transactions we make to satisfy them. Plus the guitar playing & singing are startlingly nimble. And hey, who doesn’t love a song about tamales? Guess Johnson couldn’t fret about that hellhound at his hind all the time, even though it caught up to him in the end.

• Robert Johnson, “They’re Red Hot” (buy The Complete Recordings here)