I Got a Letter This Morning: House and Prophet

    I went to see the Chuck Prophet Trio a few months ago at the Cat’s Cradle. Prophet was backed by his wife Stephanie Finch on keys and Vicente Rodriguez on percussion. I was not intimately familiar with his work, but my parents had played his records around the house or in the car. The show was great; Chuck Prophet is an excellent songwriter, the band was excellent and Finch’s backing vocals add a lot. His final song--before the encore if my memory serves me well--was “You Did (Bom Shooby Dooby Bomp).” When I saw the show, it had been a month after I finished Bob Dylan’s “The Philosophy of Modern Song.” Perhaps Dylan’s habit of reading between the lines lingered in my head when Prophet leaned towards his bullet microphone and declared “I got a letter this morning,” because I immediately envisioned the ensuing song as a remake of Son House’s “Death Letter Blues.”

    Son House was a preacher from the Mississippi delta who undertook a reverse conversion when he first heard a slide guitar. He played with Charley Patton, Willie Brown and other blues greats. I was hesitant to enjoy House’s music for a while because I had seen a video of him talking through a Skip James performance while sitting a next ti James, on stage. Eventually, I came across a televised recording of “Death Letter Blues” which changed my mind. House is playing with a young Buddy Guy in the video, but the camera only shows Guy in a brief establishing shot, so it reads as a solo performance. House’s strums are wide and his hands seem to tremble in harmony with his moans. “I got a letter this morning,” he cries, “How do you reckon it read? Said hurry, hurry, the gal you love is dead.” He repeats the phrase. House’s voice is weird and strained, lending a viscerality to this song few other performers could and have given it. When I hear this song, I cannot help but think of how W. C. Handy first encountered the blues at a train stop and called it the “weirdest music I had ever heard.”

    “Death Letter Blues” is direct and unforgiving. The narrator’s gal is dead- he goes and sees her corpse, sees her buried and goes home, knowing they will meet again, not at the end of his life, but on Judgement Day. Then, when he arrives home, her death begins to sink in. At the end, there are some references to unrequited love- “It’s so hard to love someone who don’t love you.” In a colour video recording of this song, son House prefaces this song, saying the central character was separated from his love when she died. He begins in third person in this recording, but when the narrator parts from his love’s graveside, he slips back to first person. This version is ultimately more optimistic; towards the end, he claims he will “change my way of living so I won’t have to cry no more.” In “Death Letter Blues,” Son House conveys his message through narrative, a method that gives the listener the impression that they understand what is being said.

    At the concert, before Chuck Prophet began “You Did (Bomp Shooby Dooby Bomp),” he launched into a dramatic spiel, claiming there was an ambulance situated out front just in case. He warned he was about to play “perhaps the heaviest thing you have ever heard.” Such a claim would usually crumble when situated against a Son House song, but, in my opinion, it holds up surprisingly well. The feel of the song was not unlike House’s tune; “You Did” has a chorus and “verses,” but overall comes off as freeform, with interwoven pieces punctuated by an echo-y, distorted cry of “I got a letter this morning.”

    “Who put the bomp in the bomp shooby dooby bomp, who put the ram in the ram a lama ding dong?” My mom used to pose this question in the same way she would say “I’m in a bind and I’m way behind!” It is the first line to follow “I got a letter this morning” In “You Did.” At the show, Prophet didn’t need to answer the first time- the crowd shouted out “You did!” He repeated the phrase and moved into the chorus, “Wake me up if I should drift away, I don’t want to miss a thing. Take my hand and lead me all around, I don’t care where we’re going.” The song continues along these same lines, with Prophet posing a long series of questions including, “Who cleared the static and made it sing, who put the wheel on the gravy train?” There is no clear throughline between the song’s questions, commands and the repetition of “I got a letter this morning.” The first is in past tense, the second refers to the future, and the last the immediate past, almost the present. 

    Chuck Prophet is talking about a person who gave meaning to life, a person who both “dug the grove and made it flow.” His questions are rhetorical; each one receives the same answer. He is more or less simply declaring that this person put the bomp in the bomp shooby dooby bomp. However, these question-statements are in past tense, suggesting this person is gone or no longer doing what they once did. Unspoken questions rise up- “How can I find the bomp in the bomp shooby doo bomp without you?” or “Can there even be a bomp in the bomp shooby doo bomp without you?” The lyrics don’t sound heavy, but this really is one of the heaviest things you’ve ever heard. The line “I got a letter this morning” asks a question that “Death Letter Blues” can answer. What letter? 

    Son House’s “Death Letter Blues” is not about “fox-fire” love, it’s about “two that love, L-O-V-E, love each other.” He cries “I didn’t feel so bad until the sun went down, I didn’t have a soul to throw my arms around.” She "put the bomp in the bomp shooby doo bomp;" she gave his life meaning. Even if she wasn’t with him, she could still "put the bomb in the bomp shooby doo bomp" while there was still hope of seeing her again, but now that hope is gone. “You Did” tells the same story as “Death Letter Blues,” albeit with clear emotions where the latter has clear facts. Prophet is dreaming of a future that isn’t to be; he doesn’t “want to miss a thing,” but he’s already saying “put,” “dug” or “cleared” rather than “puts,” “digs” and “clears.” Beneath these two songs are people who are looking at lives with missing pieces. 
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    It is worth noting that I cannot really say whether or not Chuck Prophet was really influenced by Son House’s “Death Letter Blues.” I do think it is worth noting that almost exactly seven months before the album with “You Did” on it was released (and almost three months before I was born if you want to think about how weird time is), the White Stripes performed “Death Letter Blues” at the Grammys. (They borrowed some lines from it for “Dead Leaves and the Dirty Ground) Regardless, looking at these two songs through the lens of each other hopefully gives some insight into both of them. 

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