This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Hard times is here and everywhere you go
Times are harder than ever been before
You know that people, they are are driftin' from door to door
But you can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go
People, if I ever can get up off of this old hard killin' floor
Lord, I'll never get down this low no more
When you hear me singin' this old lonesome song
People, you know these hard times can last us so long
You know, you say you had money, you better be sure
Lord, these hard times gon' kill you, just drag on slow
Times are harder than ever been before
You know that people, they are are driftin' from door to door
But you can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go
People, if I ever can get up off of this old hard killin' floor
Lord, I'll never get down this low no more
When you hear me singin' this old lonesome song
People, you know these hard times can last us so long
You know, you say you had money, you better be sure
Lord, these hard times gon' kill you, just drag on slow
Lyrics submitted by FackingHell
Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues Lyrics as written by Nehemiah 'skip' James
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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There are great contrasts between versions of this song, the 1931 version you can hear skip james singing this song like he means it, and it is very contemparary to his period in time.
This song is basically about being poor and having to move from door to door, or home to home, job to job. a "Killin' Floor" is old 30's slang for a Slaughter house where the blacks would often have the worst jobs of all. The slaughter house was the only placement of work many black americans who migrated north to the illinois region at this time could get a job at.
in the 1960's version he seems to be singing this song in retrospective of his life and in my opinion sounds even sadder.
This would have to be the saddest song I have ever heard...it brings me to tears... It is the only song I have ever actually felt something from, like the guitar and his voice creeps into you and surrounds your soul.
The first time I heard this song was actually the Chris Thomas King version which I would have to say is still good but it isn't the same. The guitar in his version is very haunting though.
Skip James has this eerie voice and he plays the guitar in a way that it seems to be weeping. His songs relate to existential things- You can feel his great sadness of his soul but he also has this hope or something...it is hard to explain.
Beautiful.
Starting to learn this on guitar (beware, VERY funky tuning). The one verse I would like to look at is this:
And the people are driftin' from door to door Can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go
This seems to me awfully dark. The protagonist(?) is looking at the other people and basically saying 'Listen, I'm so poor I got my own stuff to worry about. I don't care where you go.' That's harsh.
Skip James one of the Legends of Delta Blues this is a different song but has the same title as a later electric blues "Killing Floor", the structure is 8 bars, the verses just tell it like it is : a life of hardship and despair, true to the hard times of the 1930's Depression when it was recorded. His singing is haunting and bleak, a dark classic of the blues.