I love this record. Broonzy endorsed having a good time, and when I play his music, I have one as well. In Good Liquor Gonna Carry Me Down he makes the case that nothing will stop his drinking—not a 16-year-old’s promise of sex, not his doctor’s threat of transplanting monkey glands, not his current girlfriend’s threat that some other man would carry Broonzy’s business home. That is a man who is dedicated to his drinking. It is the only song reference I know to monkey glands, a belief from about 1900 that an old man could be rejuvenated by transplanting pieces of chimpanzee testicles into his scrotum. It didn’t work. There were rumors that Yeats had the procedure, which made stories about relationships with Maud Gonne and her daughter much more interesting.
Hip-Shaking Strut has the earliest example of an elephant joke I’ve found. What did the rooster say to the elephant? How about you and me not stepping on each other? (That’s funny, says me.)
converselyspeaking 