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Eric Clapton — Floating Bridge
Album: Another Ticket
Avg rating:
7.1

Your rating:
Total ratings: 304









Released: 1981
Length: 6:31
Plays (last 30 days): 0
Well I never will forget that floating bridge.
Lord I never will forget that floating bridge.
Lord I never will forget that floating bridge.
They tell me five minutes time underwater I was hid.

I was going down and I throwed up my hands.
As I was going down I throwed up my hands.
As I was going down I throwed up my hands,
Saying, "Please Lord, take me on dry land."

Well they carried me in the house and they laid me 'cross the bed.
Well they carried me in the house, they laid me 'cross the bed.
Well they carried me in the house, they laid me 'cross the bed.
I couldn't hear nothing but muddy water running 'round my head.

Oh my mother often told me, "Quit playing a bum."
My mother always told me, "Quit playing a bum."
Lord, my mother always told me, "Son, quit playing a bum.
Go out somewhere and make a crumb."

All the people on the bridge was screaming and crying.
Well all the people on the bridge was screaming and crying.
All the people on the bridge stood screaming and crying,
Saying, "Lord have mercy, wher's we g'wine?"
Comments (14)add comment
 jbuhl wrote:

Bwaaaaahhahah.  This is one of my submissions.  
This a Sleepy John Estes song.  Here is the allmusic entry

Sleepy John Estes turned Brownsville, Tennessee into his own version of a Spoon River Anthology with tightly observed songs like "Brownsville Blues," "Martha Hardin Blues," "Mailman Blues," and "Lawyer Clark Blues," songs that drew quick, amazingly detailed sketches of the people and streets of his hometown, giving his work an intimate personal flavor that is unique among the first wave of blues artists who recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. One of his finest songs, and certainly among his most personal, is "Floating Bridge," recorded on August 2, 1937, shortly after the event it describes-Estes' near drowning near Hickory, Kentucky-took place. Estes was either thrown or fell from the bridge in question, and was swept under the water for some minutes before being rescued by fellow musician Hammie Nixon. The song recounts the incident in a few spare lines that are striking for their economy and visual power, and when Estes is placed in a bed to recover following his rescue, he sings that he "couldn't hear nothing but muddy water run through my head." Given a new lease on life, Estes begins to wonder if he should change his ways ("quit playing a bum") and find an honorable profession. That issue is never resolved in the song, which ends with people screaming and crying back on the bridge. Deceptively simple, "Floating Bridge" deftly draws the turning point in a man's life without revealing the outcome, giving an intimately personal song an everyman feel. The original version of "Floating Bridge" features Estes' reedy voice over one of the easy shuffle progressions he favored. After his rediscovery in the 1960s, Estes seldom performed the song, although he turns in a delightful electric jug band version on Jim Dickinson's Delta Experimental Project Compilation, Volume 3. Eric Clapton recorded a version of "Floating Bridge" for his 1981 album Another Ticket, while Tony McPhee included it on Bleachin' the Blues, released in 2002. 

 
{#Notworthy}

Thank you jbuhl this one's damn cool
I love RP but I gotta say, it is hard to understand how all the wonderful, innovative submissions get rejected and this sort of cliched crap gets continual overplay
Love the minimalist guitar.
It grows on you. Lazy but a lot in it. Still, this is hardly the same guy who Cream'd and Derek'd the living bejesus out of that Fender. 
 thewiseking wrote:
there's no there there

  Exactly!


jbuhl wrote:

Bwaaaaahhahah.  This is one of my submissions.  
This a Sleepy John Estes song.  Here is the allmusic entry

Sleepy John Estes turned Brownsville, Tennessee into his own version of a Spoon River Anthology with tightly observed songs like "Brownsville Blues," "Martha Hardin Blues," "Mailman Blues," and "Lawyer Clark Blues," songs that drew quick, amazingly detailed sketches of the people and streets of his hometown, giving his work an intimate personal flavor that is unique among the first wave of blues artists who recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. One of his finest songs, and certainly among his most personal, is "Floating Bridge," recorded on August 2, 1937, shortly after the event it describes-Estes' near drowning near Hickory, Kentucky-took place. Estes was either thrown or fell from the bridge in question, and was swept under the water for some minutes before being rescued by fellow musician Hammie Nixon. The song recounts the incident in a few spare lines that are striking for their economy and visual power, and when Estes is placed in a bed to recover following his rescue, he sings that he "couldn't hear nothing but muddy water run through my head." Given a new lease on life, Estes begins to wonder if he should change his ways ("quit playing a bum") and find an honorable profession. That issue is never resolved in the song, which ends with people screaming and crying back on the bridge. Deceptively simple, "Floating Bridge" deftly draws the turning point in a man's life without revealing the outcome, giving an intimately personal song an everyman feel. The original version of "Floating Bridge" features Estes' reedy voice over one of the easy shuffle progressions he favored. After his rediscovery in the 1960s, Estes seldom performed the song, although he turns in a delightful electric jug band version on Jim Dickinson's Delta Experimental Project Compilation, Volume 3. Eric Clapton recorded a version of "Floating Bridge" for his 1981 album Another Ticket, while Tony McPhee included it on Bleachin' the Blues, released in 2002. 

 
Thanks for great story!

Genuine blues behind Mr. Estes song. (original, authentic)

???? blues behind Mr. Clapton's song (with a few borrowed King/Guy riffs).....

 
there's no there there
 midget wrote:
Did they change something in the Matrix and haven't told me?

Yes, I did change something. Hold on tight, my son, for another loop-de-loop is headed your way ....
Great segues today....
 Hannio wrote:
I love that RP plays the more obscure pieces sometimes instead of overplayed songs that saturated the air waves.  This and the previous Jimi Hendrix song are great examples.  I wish it did more often.

 
Bwaaaaahhahah.  This is one of my submissions.  
This a Sleepy John Estes song.  Here is the allmusic entry

Sleepy John Estes turned Brownsville, Tennessee into his own version of a Spoon River Anthology with tightly observed songs like "Brownsville Blues," "Martha Hardin Blues," "Mailman Blues," and "Lawyer Clark Blues," songs that drew quick, amazingly detailed sketches of the people and streets of his hometown, giving his work an intimate personal flavor that is unique among the first wave of blues artists who recorded in the 1920s and 1930s. One of his finest songs, and certainly among his most personal, is "Floating Bridge," recorded on August 2, 1937, shortly after the event it describes-Estes' near drowning near Hickory, Kentucky-took place. Estes was either thrown or fell from the bridge in question, and was swept under the water for some minutes before being rescued by fellow musician Hammie Nixon. The song recounts the incident in a few spare lines that are striking for their economy and visual power, and when Estes is placed in a bed to recover following his rescue, he sings that he "couldn't hear nothing but muddy water run through my head." Given a new lease on life, Estes begins to wonder if he should change his ways ("quit playing a bum") and find an honorable profession. That issue is never resolved in the song, which ends with people screaming and crying back on the bridge. Deceptively simple, "Floating Bridge" deftly draws the turning point in a man's life without revealing the outcome, giving an intimately personal song an everyman feel. The original version of "Floating Bridge" features Estes' reedy voice over one of the easy shuffle progressions he favored. After his rediscovery in the 1960s, Estes seldom performed the song, although he turns in a delightful electric jug band version on Jim Dickinson's Delta Experimental Project Compilation, Volume 3. Eric Clapton recorded a version of "Floating Bridge" for his 1981 album Another Ticket, while Tony McPhee included it on Bleachin' the Blues, released in 2002. 
 Hannio wrote:
I love that RP plays the more obscure pieces sometimes instead of overplayed songs that saturated the air waves.  This and the previous Jimi Hendrix song are great examples.  I wish it did more often.

 
I couldn't agree with you more....obscurity knocks !!!
I love that RP plays the more obscure pieces sometimes instead of overplayed songs that saturated the air waves.  This and the previous Jimi Hendrix song are great examples.  I wish it did more often.
very nice song!
An Eric Clapton song from 1981 which I haven't heard yet and wasn't played here either on an album I have never seen....

Did they change something in the Matrix and haven't told me?