Hard times is here and everywhere you go
Times are harder than ever been before
You know that people, they are are driftin' from door to door
But you can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go
People, if I ever can get up off of this old hard killin' floor
Lord, I'll never get down this low no more
When you hear me singin' this old lonesome song
People, you know these hard times can last us so long
You know, you say you had money, you better be sure
Lord, these hard times gon' kill you, just drag on slow
Times are harder than ever been before
You know that people, they are are driftin' from door to door
But you can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go
People, if I ever can get up off of this old hard killin' floor
Lord, I'll never get down this low no more
When you hear me singin' this old lonesome song
People, you know these hard times can last us so long
You know, you say you had money, you better be sure
Lord, these hard times gon' kill you, just drag on slow
Lyrics submitted by FackingHell
Hard Time Killin' Floor Blues Lyrics as written by Nehemiah 'skip' James
Lyrics © Peermusic Publishing
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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This song is basically about being poor and having to move from door to door, or home to home, job to job. a "Killin' Floor" is old 30's slang for a Slaughter house where the blacks would often have the worst jobs of all. The slaughter house was the only placement of work many black americans who migrated north to the illinois region at this time could get a job at.
in the 1960's version he seems to be singing this song in retrospective of his life and in my opinion sounds even sadder.
The first time I heard this song was actually the Chris Thomas King version which I would have to say is still good but it isn't the same. The guitar in his version is very haunting though.
Skip James has this eerie voice and he plays the guitar in a way that it seems to be weeping. His songs relate to existential things- You can feel his great sadness of his soul but he also has this hope or something...it is hard to explain.
Beautiful.
The one verse I would like to look at is this:
And the people are driftin' from door to door
Can't find no heaven, I don't care where they go
This seems to me awfully dark. The protagonist(?) is looking at the other people and basically saying 'Listen, I'm so poor I got my own stuff to worry about. I don't care where you go.' That's harsh.