Where’s Your Husband’s At

There are a number of other songs with the title ‘On the Road Again’ and the most famous is probably the Willie Nelson song, but that is not what I am writing about today.  The song that I am writing about is a traditional song and most recordings credit Will Shade, of the Memphis Jug Band, as the writer of the song.  The Lovin’ Spoonful version of this song which was the flipside of ‘Do You Believe In Magic’ is credited to John Sebastian, but it is based on the Memphis Jug Band song.  Jug band music began as street-corner busking, where performers soon learned that the novelty of blowing on a ceramic jug, kazoo or harmonica grew larger crowds than the more sophisticated picking on banjos, mandolins and acoustic guitars by their more dignified blues colleagues.

The Grateful Dead played this song in 1966 (and before that when they were called Mother McCree’s Uptown Jug Champions), then it was dropped until it was reintroduced for a spell in the early 1980s, primarily in acoustic sets.  It was sung by Garcia in the 60’s and Weir in the 80’s.  They next performed the song in acoustic sets in the last few months of 1980 and, mainly in electric sets, during the 1981 to 1984 period.  It was then dropped from the repertoire and in total, it was performed about 40 times.

The singer of this song tells you why he married a bad girl and it is basically because they are more fun, but they probably won’t do any cooking.  The thing about a bad girl is that you can’t trust them.  They are natural born easy, but they like to be on the road, so they could take off at any time.  When one of your so-called friends stops by and you are not home, they may inquire where her husband is at, and then she will take off with them.  When you do get back home there is a good chance that you might find her in bed with someone else.

Why I married me a bad girl, tell you the reason why
Bad girls will even do things on the sly
Look for your supper to be good and hot
She never even put a stew bone in the pot

Chorus
She’s on the road again, sure as you’re born
Natural born easy on the road again
She’s on the road again, sure as you’re born

Friend comes by, says he’s looking for his hat
Wants to know where’s your husband’s at
Say I don’t know, he’s on the way to the pen
Come on pretty momma let’s get on the road again

[chorus]

Went to my house the front door was locked
Went ‘round to my window, but my window was locked
Jumped right back, shook my head,
Big old rounder in my folding bed
Jumped into the window, broke the glass
Never seen that little rounder run so fast

[chorus]

Written for Song Lyric Sunday where the prompt is Fiancé/Husband/Lover/Wife.