I Held My Baby Last Night
"I Held My Baby Last Night" is a song by Elmore James originally released in 1952. It was covered by Dave Gahan and Soulsavers and is the fourth track on Imposter.
Lyrics
(from Fleetwood Mac's version)
Until everything was alright
Held my baby last night
Until everything was alright
She woke up early in the morning
All she wanna do was fuss and fight
She said, "Baby, baby, baby
Now baby please come back to me
Yes, now baby please come back to me"
She said, "Baby, baby, baby
Now baby please come back to me
You know I love you baby
And you know your love is free"
Well it's past ten in the morning
And baby, everything is going all wrong
Yes, it's past ten in the morning
And baby, everything is going all wrong
You know I've been with you so long baby
But now you took me away from home
Dave's Take
"I played this song, and the record it was taken from, every night in my dressing room on the last Depeche Mode tour. I'd play harmonica along with the music and would always imagine recording a Soulsavers version of the song."1
My Take
The original 1952 version of this was a little harder to find as the majority of the recordings out there come from the 1959 re-recording. But I had to find and listen to the original, first. And man, it is so full of soul! This is just pure, unadulterated old-school blues. The words and music are so fluid, and by that, I mean that the music is so spontaneous and free-flowing and the words themselves change ever so slightly from one performance to another, as they should in blues music. (For instance, Elmore's version has "daddy, daddy, daddy" in the second part instead of "baby, baby, baby"). I feel like this was the spirit that Dave was influenced by and tried to capture in many of his songs, especially on Paper Monsters. Anyway, the next version that I had to listen to was the one by Fleetwood Mac. And it's a great version, too. This should be another one that Dave would've had a ton of fun with. All I can say is, I sure hope there is a saxophone, too, on his version!
Well, there is no saxophone in Dave's version, but holy moly, he sure sounds like he had fun with this one all right! Where he sounded soft and subdued on everything else on this album, here he just lets it all hang out, rocking out more than...blues-ing out, I guess? It's like "Bottle Living" or "I Feel You" all over again, and he even throws in his rock screech. It's somewhat of a shame that this along with "Metal Heart" are the only 2 songs on this album where he just completely unleashes like this, but that fact at least doesn't detract from the whole album's quality, in my opinion. And he's not the only one who unleashes here, either...the guitar is especially insane, wailing away like a Jimmy Page solo or something. This is quite a brand-new and unique interpretation of an old blues number and I have to admit, it's going to take a few listens for me to fully appreciate this one, but I think I'll get there.
Music Video
There is no music video for this song.