Love in Vain
Recorded during the same 1937 Dallas sessions, "Love in Vain" reveals a completely different side of Robert Johnson's genius. Moving away from standard Delta blues structures, Johnson utilized a surprisingly sophisticated, almost jazz-like chord progression. He tenderly fingerpicked while singing a profoundly sorrowful narrative about watching a train take his lover away. The Rolling Stones recognized its structural brilliance decades later, adapting it into a devastating country-rock ballad on Let It Bleed.
The floating-verse lineage for this recording (who else recorded it, where the melody or lyric traveled, and how it was adapted) is still being mapped. This section will trace the song's DNA across the archive.
Contributions welcome at OlMrRead@ccblues.com.