Week 24: Goin’ Where The Monon Crosses The Yellow Dog



Scrapper Blackwell

The Song

“Goin’ where the Monon Crosses the Yellow Dog” is an incredible piece of music. The guitar at times is fast and furious, then soft and incredibly soulful. It is the work of a guy who was a the top of the game for years, and who had an endless bag of tricks and something to prove to the world.

The title is Scrapper’s take on an old rail road song that dates back to the late 19th century. The Yazoo Delta rail road was opened in 1897, and only lasted 6 years, butthe locals called it the “Yellow Dog” after the initials “Y.D.” painted on the side of the cars; Monon is a town in Indiana that served as the central railway exchange back in the early 1900s. W.C: Handy published “Yellow Dog Blues” in 1912, featuring the line “Going to where the Southern Crosses the Yellow Dog” – Scrapper adapted it to be a more autobiographical tale, though in all likelihood the ‘Monon’ probably never did cross the ‘Yellow Dog’.

The song is a quick change 12 bar in the key of F#, played in standard tuning with a capo on the 2nd fret. Unusually, he goes into the V chord in bar 2 instead of the usual IV chord of a standard quick change. The song is extremely difficult to play accurately. It starts of in a blaze of glory, very fast, very aggressive but very clean finger picked notes; the verses are almost played as call and response with the voice and are very quiet, with some very subtle and beautiful phrases, and the solo just tears it apart again – the A section in the solo and outro is the hardest thing I’ve come across since starting this website.

Scrapper has a very physically strong right hand, and (especially with the high E), digs his ring or middle finger under it and gets a real pinched, or plucked, sound out of it when ever he wants it. He will pick – as an example – the B string normally with the index finger, and this will contrast greatly with the plucked high E, creating two different timbres and grooves in the melody at the same time (then he’s got his thumb going too). His thumb is really strong, and he palm mutes at times to get a real percussive effect; at other times he will hit a 3 or 4 string chord with the thumb softly but with great power – it’s not loud but it’s a really strong sound.

As always, start slowly and build up speed, but it’s almost impossible to duplicate what Scrapper is doing here. He’s got a unique style of playing developed over 40 years of A grade guitar work; his subtlety and strength are the keys and they are probably unique to his hands. You can get close, but don’t be too upset if it doesn’t sound exactly the same. Even if you can’t play this all the way through accurately, there are just so many good melodic ideas in the verse sections that you can incorporate into your own style that it’s worth spending a few hours getting to know Scrapper and his work.



The Lyrics

E B7 E Girl, I'm goin' where the Monon crosses the Yellow Dog A7 E Lord, I'm goin' where the Monon crosses the Yellow Dog B7 A7 E B7 Lord, they treat me like a possum, I would be out in the log Lord, you be good to me, and I'll sure be good to you Lord, be good to me, and I'll sure be good to you Girl, that's the kind of way, I caused you want to do I laid last night a-sleepin', Lord, a-thinkin' to myself I laid last night a-thinkin', oh my God, a-thinkin' to myself Lord, if you wanted someone, I guess you wanted someone else SOLO (Spoken: Oh, I know what's the matter now) What's the matter with you, child? You cryin' every day What's the matter with you, child? You cryin' every day Lord, that's all right, I'll hold your head wherever you lay I cooked your breakfast, I brought it to your little bed Lord, I cooked your breakfast, Lord, I brought it to your bed I was a man enough to hold your little old achin' head

The Intro



Hold onto your hat and good luck!

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The Progression



Verse 1

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The Solo



That part is ridiculously hard; it changes rhythm slightly after leading into beat 1 of bar 5, then your thumb hits a soft shuffle note, then strums a strong A7 chord on the beat, your index finger does a quick hammer from the open B to C#, lets it ring for half a beat, then back to the open B – making sure you play it with the same feel as the first hammered note so it sounds separate from the big chord the thumb is hitting. You have to get it to sound like a pendulum swinging back and forth on the B string, completely independent to the crash of the thumb or the sharp pinch of the high E. Then you are playing the high E from underneath to kind of ‘snap’ it to give a third texture to the riff in time with the shuffle beats, which you have to let ring to create space when the big chord hits a split second later. 3 very separate things, 4 if you consider the shuffle beat separate from the chord, going on using different fingers and strings every 2 beats. All of them ringing over the top of every other bit. You have to be clean so you don’t accidentally mute anything, you have to hit each string differently to the others, you have to be string so the 3 different voices can be heard, you have to be precise so the notes only last as long as you want them to and you have to be quick. This is the single hardest thing I have seen done on a guitar. I can’t get any where near being able to play this properly. The touch Scrapper has got with this is developed over decades of playing the blues.

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The Outro



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