Roll and Tumble

White Tears begins with an epigraph:

I rolled and I tumbled
Cried the whole night long
Woke up this morning
I didn’t know right from wrong

The earliest recorded version of these lyrics are from Hambone Willie Newbern’s “Roll and Tumble Blues,” on a 1929 Okeh Records 78.

Alan Lomax recorded Delta blueswoman Rosa Lee Hill singing a country blues version in 1959, but her musical style suggests a time decades earlier.

Muddy Waters, the Father of the Chicago Blues, recorded the song for Chess Records in 1950.

Waters later rewrote the song as “Louisiana Blues.”

In 1966, the British rock band Cream, with a young Eric Clapton on guitar, recorded the song as “Rollin’ and Tumblin.'”

The 1960s rock band Canned Heat performed it at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. It’s worth noting that the band’s name comes from the Prohibition-era practice among the poor of straining Sterno, a fuel used in chafing dishes, through a sock, and drinking it to get drunk. The resulting drink was not only addictive but also toxic.

A 1915 ad for Sterno.

This deadly addiction was the subject of Delta bluesman Tommy Johnson’s 1928 song “Canned Heat Blues,” which Seth plays for Leonie on page 86-87 of White Tears.

Bob Dylan recorded a version of “Rollin’ and Tumblin'” in 2006.

Jeff Beck and Imogen Heap recorded a live version in 2007.

Why did Hari Kunzru use these lyrics as an epigraph to introduce his novel?

What are the implications for the individual bluesman and for society of “not knowing right from wrong”?

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