Something told me it was over
When I saw you and her talkin'
Something deep down in my soul said, 'Cry, girl'
When I saw you and that girl walkin' around
Whoo, I would rather, I would rather go blind, boy
Then to see you walk away from me, child, no
Whoo, so you see, I love you so much
That I don't wanna watch you leave me, baby
Most of all, I just don't, I just don't wanna be free, no
Whoo, whoo, I was just, I was just, I was just
Sittin here thinkin', of your kiss and your warm embrace, yeah
When the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now, baby
Revealed the tears that was on my face, yeah
Whoo and baby, baby, I'd rather, I'd rather be blind, boy
Then to see you walk away, see you walk away from me, yeah
Whoo, baby, baby, baby, I'd rather be blind...
- Ellington Jordan and Billy Foster co-wrote "I'd Rather Go Blind."
- The song was first recorded by Etta James in 1967.
- It has since been considered a blues and soul classic.
- Etta James wrote in her autobiography that she heard the song sketched by her friend Ellington "Fugi" Jordan when she visited him in prison.
- James then wrote the rest of the song with Jordan, but for tax reasons, she gave the writing credit to her partner at the time, Billy Foster.
- The song appears on the Tell Mama album and on the B-side of the single of the same name.
- Some critics considered "I'd Rather Go Blind" to be of such an emotional level that it is impossible to get enough of it.
One of the most brutally frank lyrics ever bled onto a page, dispensed through one of music’s most devastating vocal performances. In two and a half minutes Etta James took every song of broken love and heartache up to that point, every songwriter and singer who tried to articulate their pain, and brushed them aside. You only thought you felt loss. You only thought you knew what hurt was
‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ was laid down at Muscle Shoals’ FAME Studios for the sessions that culminated in James’ eighth album, Tell Mama, a collection where each rhythm track and organ vibration, horn punch and guitar lick is as subtly executed as the last. There are few stables of musicians that were as taut, intuitive and finely honed as those players at Muscle Shoals, and they shape the track’s soulful foundations, urging the story to unfold on the crescendo of Roger Hawkins’ snare roll. “Something told me it was over/ When I saw you and her…” The briefest of pauses, before James delivers the killer blow – “…talking.” From Etta’s lips, it carries so much weight; a litany of implications and finalities implicit in that one word.
Recorded in ’67 and released the following year, ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ appeared on the flipside of the ‘Tell Mama’ single, a song James didn’t rate as highly as the rest of us. ”Never liked it. Never liked singing it,” she later admitted. Funnily enough, though, she had a lot of time for Rod Stewart’s 1972 version of its monumental B-side. On her second live album, Red-Hot & Live, Etta introduces the song, name-dropping Rod the Mod and telling the assembled that she thinks of ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ as a country & western song – that she always fantasised about being a country & western singer. Imagine that? She may have been on to something. Only Hank Williams equalled Etta in digging straight to the core of hurt and heartache and laying out the wreckage. The song weighs heavy with pain and resignation; memories and ghosts. Its understated power lies in the negative space – the absence of anger in Etta’s voice, the absence of resentment towards the track’s unidentified woman. There’s simply no room for it. Grief is all-encompassing.
There are few songs that deliver a gut punch like this so concisely; a confessional of such emotional depth delivered over just three economical verses. According to James, the outline was written by her friend Ellington ‘Fugi’ Jordan and shown to her when she visited him in California’s Chino prison during a stint for robbery (Jordan, incidentally, collaborated with progressive Detroit funk rock band Black Merda on his own psych funk record Mary Don’t Take Me On No Bad Trip – with he and Etta’s song retooled as ‘I’d Rather Be A Blind Man’ – and was subsequently instrumental in the band being signed to Chess Records). James then finished the rest of the song with Jordan, but gave her own songwriting credit to her then partner, Billy Foster of The Medallions, for that most unforgiving and soulless of motives…tax reasons. The royalty payments trickled steadily into Foster’s coffers from that point on, a source of chagrin that needled James for decades to come.
When I saw you and her talkin'
Something deep down in my soul said, 'Cry, girl'
When I saw you and that girl walkin' around
Whoo, I would rather, I would rather go blind, boy
Then to see you walk away from me, child, no
Whoo, so you see, I love you so much
That I don't wanna watch you leave me, baby
Most of all, I just don't, I just don't wanna be free, no
Whoo, whoo, I was just, I was just, I was just
Sittin here thinkin', of your kiss and your warm embrace, yeah
When the reflection in the glass that I held to my lips now, baby
Revealed the tears that was on my face, yeah
Whoo and baby, baby, I'd rather, I'd rather be blind, boy
Then to see you walk away, see you walk away from me, yeah
Whoo, baby, baby, baby, I'd rather be blind...
The story of the song ' I d Rather Go Blind
- The song was first recorded by Etta James in 1967.
- It has since been considered a blues and soul classic.
- Etta James wrote in her autobiography that she heard the song sketched by her friend Ellington "Fugi" Jordan when she visited him in prison.
- James then wrote the rest of the song with Jordan, but for tax reasons, she gave the writing credit to her partner at the time, Billy Foster.
- The song appears on the Tell Mama album and on the B-side of the single of the same name.
- Some critics considered "I'd Rather Go Blind" to be of such an emotional level that it is impossible to get enough of it.
One of the most brutally frank lyrics ever bled onto a page, dispensed through one of music’s most devastating vocal performances. In two and a half minutes Etta James took every song of broken love and heartache up to that point, every songwriter and singer who tried to articulate their pain, and brushed them aside. You only thought you felt loss. You only thought you knew what hurt was
‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ was laid down at Muscle Shoals’ FAME Studios for the sessions that culminated in James’ eighth album, Tell Mama, a collection where each rhythm track and organ vibration, horn punch and guitar lick is as subtly executed as the last. There are few stables of musicians that were as taut, intuitive and finely honed as those players at Muscle Shoals, and they shape the track’s soulful foundations, urging the story to unfold on the crescendo of Roger Hawkins’ snare roll. “Something told me it was over/ When I saw you and her…” The briefest of pauses, before James delivers the killer blow – “…talking.” From Etta’s lips, it carries so much weight; a litany of implications and finalities implicit in that one word.
Recorded in ’67 and released the following year, ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ appeared on the flipside of the ‘Tell Mama’ single, a song James didn’t rate as highly as the rest of us. ”Never liked it. Never liked singing it,” she later admitted. Funnily enough, though, she had a lot of time for Rod Stewart’s 1972 version of its monumental B-side. On her second live album, Red-Hot & Live, Etta introduces the song, name-dropping Rod the Mod and telling the assembled that she thinks of ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ as a country & western song – that she always fantasised about being a country & western singer. Imagine that? She may have been on to something. Only Hank Williams equalled Etta in digging straight to the core of hurt and heartache and laying out the wreckage. The song weighs heavy with pain and resignation; memories and ghosts. Its understated power lies in the negative space – the absence of anger in Etta’s voice, the absence of resentment towards the track’s unidentified woman. There’s simply no room for it. Grief is all-encompassing.
There are few songs that deliver a gut punch like this so concisely; a confessional of such emotional depth delivered over just three economical verses. According to James, the outline was written by her friend Ellington ‘Fugi’ Jordan and shown to her when she visited him in California’s Chino prison during a stint for robbery (Jordan, incidentally, collaborated with progressive Detroit funk rock band Black Merda on his own psych funk record Mary Don’t Take Me On No Bad Trip – with he and Etta’s song retooled as ‘I’d Rather Be A Blind Man’ – and was subsequently instrumental in the band being signed to Chess Records). James then finished the rest of the song with Jordan, but gave her own songwriting credit to her then partner, Billy Foster of The Medallions, for that most unforgiving and soulless of motives…tax reasons. The royalty payments trickled steadily into Foster’s coffers from that point on, a source of chagrin that needled James for decades to come.
A striking live version of ‘I’d Rather Go Blind’ was captured at Montreux Jazz Festival in 1975 – her first European visit – not long after James’ stint in a drug rehabilitation programme for heroin addiction. She told the crowd, “I can’t speak French, I cant speak nuthin’ but English and American English…slang”. But what Etta did – what music does – transcends language. She had been singing the song for almost ten years by this stage, its edge in no way blunted by the passing of years and countless deliveries, nor the singer’s own hardships. If anything, her experiences galvanised the song’s sentiment. The audience’s nervous laughter in reaction to her pained expression and uninhibited, almost confrontational entreaty to the heavens at the song’s finale only heightens the effect of its retelling for the nth time – because performance or no, when Etta James sings, it’s for real. “I’d rather be a blind girl than to watch you walk away from me.” It’s one of soul music’s greatest cuts, one of music’s great elegies – as shattering as it is sublime.
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