Goodbye Jimmy Reed
   HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

"Goodbye Jimmy Reed" is an uptempo blues song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter
Bob Dylan Bob Dylan (legally Robert Dylan; born Robert Allen Zimmerman, May 24, 1941) is an American singer-songwriter. Described as one of the greatest songwriters of all time, Dylan has been a major figure in popular culture over his nearly 70-year ...
and released as the sixth track on his 2020 album ''
Rough and Rowdy Ways ''Rough and Rowdy Ways'' is the thirty-ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on June 19, 2020, through Columbia Records. It is Dylan's first album of original songs since his 2012 album '' Tempest'', following three ...
''. A tribute to blues giant
Jimmy Reed Mathis James Reed (September 6, 1925 – August 29, 1976) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His particular style of electric blues was popular with a wide variety of audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), "Baby Wha ...
, the song has been singled out for praise by critics for being the most raucous number on an album otherwise predominated by quieter, slow-to-mid-tempo songs, and for playful lyrics that deliberately juxtapose "the sacred and the profane". It is the only song on the album on which Dylan plays harmonica and his first such studio performance since he recorded "The Christmas Blues" for his album '' Christmas in the Heart'' in 2009.


Background and composition

Dylan has long admired
Jimmy Reed Mathis James Reed (September 6, 1925 – August 29, 1976) was an American blues musician and songwriter. His particular style of electric blues was popular with a wide variety of audiences. Reed's songs such as "Honest I Do" (1957), "Baby Wha ...
, covering "
Baby What You Want Me to Do "Baby What You Want Me to Do" (sometimes called "You Got Me Running" or "You Got Me Runnin'") is a blues song that was written and recorded by Jimmy Reed in 1959. It was a record chart hit for Reed and, as with several of his songs, it has appeal ...
" during the ''Infidels'' sessions in 1983 (an outtake of which was officially released on '' The Bootleg Series Vol. 16: Springtime in New York 1980–1985'' in 2021) and again with
Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers were an American rock band formed in Gainesville, Florida, in 1976. The band originally comprised lead singer and rhythm guitarist Tom Petty, lead guitarist Mike Campbell, keyboardist Benmont Tench, drummer ...
during rehearsals for
Farm Aid Farm Aid is an annual benefit concert held for American farmers. History On July 13, 1985, before performing "When The Ship Comes In" with Keith Richards and Ron Wood at the Live Aid benefit concert for the 1983–1985 Ethiopian famine, B ...
in 1985 (a video recording of which is extant); and he played " Bright Lights, Big City" as a duet with
Eric Clapton Eric Patrick Clapton (born 1945) is an English Rock music, rock and blues guitarist, singer, and songwriter. He is regarded as one of the most successful and influential guitarists in rock music. Clapton ranked second in ''Rolling Stone''s l ...
at a live concert in
New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...
in 1999. The music for "Goodbye Jimmy Reed", however, is closer to Dylan's own mid-1960s output, the song " Leopard-Skin Pill-Box Hat" in particular, than anything Reed ever recorded. Dylan scholar Tony Attwood notes that the song begins with an electric guitar intro that is just "three beats long" (i.e., shorter than what one would expect from a traditional
rhythm and blues Rhythm and blues, frequently abbreviated as R&B or R'n'B, is a genre of popular music that originated within African American communities in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predomina ...
song) and that this "unexpected" three-beat bar continues to occur as a turnaround between each verse in the song. The song is performed in the key of
A major A major is a major scale based on A, with the pitches A, B, C, D, E, F, and G. Its key signature has three sharps. Its relative minor is F-sharp minor and its parallel minor is A minor. The A major scale is: Changes needed for the ...
. Lyrically, "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" is similar to previous Dylan songs "
Blind Willie McTell Blind Willie McTell (born William Samuel McTier; May 5, 1898 – August 19, 1959) was an American Piedmont blues and ragtime singer, songwriter and guitarist. He played in a fluid, syncopated finger picking guitar style common among many Eas ...
" and "
High Water (For Charley Patton) "High Water (For Charley Patton)" is a song written and performed by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released as the seventh track on his 31st studio album '' "Love and Theft"'' in 2001 and anthologized on the compilation album ''Dylan' ...
" in that it pays tribute to the titular blues singer indirectly. Aside from the "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" refrain, there are only two overt references to Reed in the song: The line "I had nothing to fight with but a butcher's hook" alludes to Reed's time working at the Armour meat-packing plant in
Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...
, and the line "Can't you hear me calling from down in Virginia?" refers to Reed's 1969 album '' Down in Virginia'' (featuring a song by the same title written by his wife Mary Lee Reed). The lyrics are notable for mixing references to religion ("For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory / Go tell it on the mountain, go tell the real story") with sexual innuendo ("Transparent woman in a transparent dress / Suits you well, I must confess") and double entendre ("I'll break open your grapes / I'll suck out the juice"). Dylan may have intended these juxtapositions to be a commentary on the "Saturday night vs. Sunday morning" dichotomy between the blues and the genre that is its closest kin:
gospel music Gospel music is a traditional genre of Christian music and a cornerstone of Christian media. The creation, performance, significance, and even the definition of gospel music vary according to culture and social context. Gospel music is compo ...
.


Critical reception

Writing in ''
The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...
'', historian
Douglas Brinkley Douglas Brinkley (born December 14, 1960) is an American author, Katherine Tsanoff Brown Chair in Humanities, and professor of history at Rice University. Brinkley is a history commentator for CNN, Presidential Historian for the New York Historica ...
called the song a "high-octane showstopper" that honors Reed with "dragon-fierce harmonica riffs and bawdy lyrics". Critic Ann-Margaret Daniel, in a review of ''
Rough and Rowdy Ways ''Rough and Rowdy Ways'' is the thirty-ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on June 19, 2020, through Columbia Records. It is Dylan's first album of original songs since his 2012 album '' Tempest'', following three ...
'' at ''
Hot Press ''Hot Press'' is a monthly music and politics magazine based in Dublin, Ireland, founded in June 1977. The magazine has been edited since its inception by Niall Stokes. History ''Hot Press'' was founded in June 1977 by Niall Stokes, who cont ...
'', noted that the song is "a romping, glorious, boogying hello, more than it is a fare thee well". ''
Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...
s
Rob Sheffield Robert James Sheffield (born February 2, 1966) is an American music journalist and author. He is a long time contributing editor at ''Rolling Stone'', writing about music, TV, and pop culture. Previously, he was a contributing editor at '' Blen ...
called it a "raw blues stomp" in which Dylan proves to be "a master of comic timing". Dylan scholar Stephen Scobie wrote in an online essay that one "could write a whole textbook on sexual pathology" based on three lines from the song (including "I can't play the record 'cause my needle got stuck", which Scobie interprets as an impotence metaphor), and claimed that, of all the songs on the album, "this is the one that most begs to be unleashed in
ive Ive or IVE may refer to: Music * Ive (group), a South Korean girl group * I've Sound (aka "I've"), a Japanese musical group People * Ive (given name), a Croatian and Slovenian given name * Bert Ive (1875–1939), British-born Australian cinema ...
performance". In the 2022 edition of their book ''Bob Dylan All the Songs: The Story Behind Every Track'', authors Philippe Margotin and Jean-Michel Guesdon call the song "a superb 'blues shuffle'" and claim that it comes close to the "spirit" of Jimmy Reed through "precise guitar playing, a rather clear sound, a rhythm with a communicative groove, and some brief interventions on the harmonica". A 2022 article at
Ultimate Classic Rock Townsquare Media, Inc. (formerly Regent Communications until 2010) is an American radio network and media company based in Purchase, New York. The company started in radio and expanded into digital media toward the end of the 2000s, starting wit ...
identified the song as the best on ''Rough and Rowdy Ways'': "If you listened to nothing else on the album but 'Goodbye Jimmy Reed', a foot-tapping tribute to the late blues guitarist, you'll come away with inevitable knowledge: Dylan, in his 80th decade of life and 60th of music-making, has still got it".


Accolades

In a list that has circulated widely online, former President
Barack Obama Barack Hussein Obama II (born August 4, 1961) is an American politician who was the 44th president of the United States from 2009 to 2017. A member of the Democratic Party, he was the first African American president in American history. O ...
named "Goodbye Jimmy Reed" as one of his favorite songs of 2020. The staff of
NPR National Public Radio (NPR) is an American public broadcasting organization headquartered in Washington, D.C., with its NPR West headquarters in Culver City, California. It serves as a national Radio syndication, syndicator to a network of more ...
's '' World Cafe'' likewise included it on a playlist of the "Best Songs of 2020". It was the only song from ''
Rough and Rowdy Ways ''Rough and Rowdy Ways'' is the thirty-ninth studio album by American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan, released on June 19, 2020, through Columbia Records. It is Dylan's first album of original songs since his 2012 album '' Tempest'', following three ...
'' on either list.


Cultural references

Two lyrics in the song refer to 19th-century hymns: "Give me that old time religion, it's just what I need" is a reference to the traditional gospel song, "
Old-Time Religion ("Give Me That") "Old-Time Religion" (and similar spellings) is a traditional Gospel song dating from 1873, when it was included in a list of Jubilee songs, or earlier. It has become a standard in many Protestant hymnals, though it says nothing ab ...
" (with its repeated chorus of "Give me that old-time religion"), and "Go tell it on the mountain, go tell the real story" refers to the African-American spiritual " Go Tell It on the Mountain". The line "For thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory" is a quote from the
Lord's Prayer The Lord's Prayer, also known by its incipit Our Father (, ), is a central Christian prayer attributed to Jesus. It contains petitions to God focused on God’s holiness, will, and kingdom, as well as human needs, with variations across manusc ...
. In an online essay, Niall Brennan has argued that the song is actually studded with hidden references to the life and career of Dylan's friend
Van Morrison Sir George Ivan "Van" Morrison (born 31 August 1945) is a Northern Irish singer-songwriter and musician whose recording career started in the 1960s. Morrison's albums have performed well in the UK and Ireland, with more than 40 reaching the UK ...
. He cites, as examples, the song's opening line ("I live on a street named after a saint"), which seemingly echoes a sentence in
Johnny Rogan John Rogan (14 February 1953 – 21 January 2021) was a British author of Irish descent best known for his books about music and popular culture. He wrote influential biographies of the Byrds, Neil Young, the Smiths, Van Morrison and Ray Davies. ...
's 2005 biography, '' Van Morrison: No Surrender'': "Catholics all went to schools named after saints and Protestants went to schools named after streets"; as well as the use of the word "Proddy", a derogatory term for a Protestant as termed by Irish Catholics. Dylan scholar Laura Tenschert has pointed out another decidedly non-American source for one of the lyrics: "God be with you, brother dear / If you don't mind me asking what brings you here?" is a close paraphrase of a couple of lines from Act 2, Scene 2 of ''
Les Femmes Savantes ''Les Femmes savantes'' (, ''The Learned Ladies'') is a comedy by Molière in five acts, written in verse. A satire on academic pretension, female education, and '' préciosité'' (French for preciosity), it was one of his most popular comedies ...
'' by
Molière Jean-Baptiste Poquelin (; 15 January 1622 (baptised) – 17 February 1673), known by his stage name Molière (, ; ), was a French playwright, actor, and poet, widely regarded as one of the great writers in the French language and world liter ...
(as translated by
Richard Wilbur Richard Purdy Wilbur (March 1, 1921 – October 14, 2017) was an American poet and literary translator. One of the foremost poets, along with his friend Anthony Hecht, of the World War II generation, Wilbur's work, often employing rhyme, and c ...
).


Live performances

"Goodbye Jimmy Reed" received its live debut at the Riverside Theater in
Milwaukee, Wisconsin Milwaukee is the List of cities in Wisconsin, most populous city in the U.S. state of Wisconsin. Located on the western shore of Lake Michigan, it is the List of United States cities by population, 31st-most populous city in the United States ...
on November 2, 2021, the first concert of Dylan's Rough and Rowdy Ways World Wide Tour. According to Dylan's official website, he has performed the song in concert 250 times as of April 2025.


Notable cover

Elvis Costello Declan Patrick MacManus (born 25 August 1954), known professionally as Elvis Costello, is an English singer, songwriter, record producer, author and television host. According to ''Rolling Stone'', Costello "reinvigorated the literate, lyrical ...
covered the song live on his Spring 2025 U.S. tour of North America with
Steve Nieve Steve Nieve ( "naïve"; born Stephen John Nason, 21 February 1958) is an English musician and composer. In a career spanning more than 40 years, Nieve has been a member of Elvis Costello's backing bands the Attractions and the Imposters, as w ...
.


References


External links

*
Lyrics
at Bob Dylan's official site {{authority control 2020 songs Bob Dylan songs Songs written by Bob Dylan Songs about musicians Songs about blues Cultural depictions of blues musicians