Bottle Up And Go is a traditional Blues song, with roots extending back in to the 19th Century. It was recorded many times between the 1930s and the 1960s, by a diverse range of Blues musicians.
It has a 12-bar form, but not the typical AAB lyric, instead being a ‘chorus’ song with a repeated refrain over bars 5 – 12, preceded each time by a different couplet in the first four bars.
Identifiable precursors are Hesitation Blues and The Duck’s Yas Yas Yas. Hesitation Blues shares the same couplet and chorus form. A version was published by W.C. Handy and it was first recorded by the Victor Military Band in 1916. Leadbelly and Reverend Gary Davis both recorded the song, and Jim Jackson’s 1930 recording is particularly good.
Later versions by Dave Van Ronk, Janis Joplin and Hot Tuna use a lyric shared by many iterations of Bottle Up And Go: ” A nickel is a nickel…”
The Duck’s Yas Yas Yas is an 8-bar Blues that contains the line, ” Mama bought a rooster, thought it was a duck.” that became a common feature of Bottle Up And Go, where Mama buys or kills a chicken, thinks it’s a duck and puts it on the table with its legs sticking up.
James “Stump” Johnson was the first to record The Duck’s Yas Yas Yas in 1929:
The earliest release on disc of the song in question was as Bottle It Up And Go by The Memphis Jug Band in 1932.
The first verse:
I love my baby and she loves me too, I don’t give a gosh-darned what she do.
We gotta bottle it up and go x2
Now high-powered mama, your daddy got the water on.
An earlier, unrelated Memphis Jug Band song had a reference to daddy drawing the bath water. The accepted definitions of ‘to bottle up and go’ seem to be to leave, either spontaneously or unexpectedly, to make a swift exit after a disagreement, or to flee a bad situation without anyone realising you’ve scarpered.
Apart from the chorus, the Memphis Jug Band recorded doesn’t share any lyrics with subsequent versions. Each successive interpreter has made the song their own, creating new couplets or using some of the ‘floating verses’ that bob around in the sea of Blues for all to fish out.
John Lee Williamson ( Sonny Boy Williamson I ) recorded his take on Bottle It Up And Go in 1937.
It shares the same chorus as the previous piece.
A duck makes an appearance, but he isn’t mistaken for a chicken:
“Now I had a little duck, and I named him Jim.”
“I put him on the pond just to see him swim.”
A more well-known recording was made by Mississippian, Tommy McClennan in Chicago in 1939.
It contains themes which crop up time and again in later recordings:
Now she may be old, ninety years.
She ain’t too old for to shift them gears.
She got to bottle it up and go X 2
Now them high-powered women, sure got to bottle it up and go.
Now a nickel is a nickel, a dime is a dime.
Don’t need no girl if she want wine.
Now my mama killed a chicken, she thought it was a duck.
She put him on the table with the legs stickin’ up.
There’s also a ‘scat’ verse, which many others also include.
McClennan alternates “bottle it up and go” with “bottle up and go”. His is an energetic and vibrant rendition. He interjects spoken asides and often plays the refrain on guitar instead of singing it.
Leadbelly laid down several cuts of the song in the early 1940s.
In a couple of them, he proffers an explanation of the term, ” high-powered women”
“High-powered women. That means a woman when she’s high-powered, she can drive a car, she can do most anything. ’cause you know, women now, make the news. They make the news, and if you make ’em mad, they blow out your fuse! And when I mean they can drive a car, they can drive the airplane, they can do everything sorta like a man. So now, I’m gonna bottle up and go for the women, because they’re great women, way I think about it.”
His recordings contain the lines about nonagenarians and gallicide but in his, “Nickel is a nickel”, he “Need no girl if she want mine.”
He also sings “bottle up and go”, not “bottle it up.” , though for some reason the Archive Of Folk Music album lists the song as, “Burrow Love And Go.”
In 1942 Sonny Terry & Brownie McGhee gave us Step It Up And Go:
Their “Nickel” verse:
A nickel is a nickel, a dime is a dime.
Got to have a girl to have a good time.
Blind Boy Fuller also contributed a ‘Step It Up And Go’ slightly earlier in 1940.
Here’s one of his verses:
Front door shut, back one too.
Blind pulled down, now what you gonna do?
You got to step it up and go, yeah and go.
Well you can’t stay and pet it, I declare you got to step it up and go.
Fellow Piedmont musician and friend of Fuller’s, Richard Trice, created Pack It Up And Go in 1947.
It’s vocally and stylistically indebted to Fuller, but shares no lyrics with those he sang.
Verse one:
Well, I’m going to sing this song.
Goin’ away, I won’t be long.
I got to pack it up and go, yes and go.
Said my best girl quit me, sure got to pack it up and go.
Interestingly, one verse has a direct reference to homosexuality:
Well I know a little boy, said he don’t like girls.
Painted face, wore his hair all curled.
Two years later, Big John Greer produced a Rhythm & Blues rendition of the song.
It’s ‘Bottle It Up And Go” again, this time, with Arkansas-born Greer contributing forceful tenor sax and vocals. It contains the three, ‘stock’ verses ( Grandma, nickels, chickens).
He complains that he, “Need no girl if she wants wine” which is ironic as he died from alcoholism. Perhaps he wanted the wine for himself?
B.B. King got in on the act in 1952, with Shake It Up And Go.
There are only three vocal verses, and two of them are ‘standard’. Mr King slips into “bottle up and go” on all of them.
In the same year, in California, Little Willie Cotton recorded a stylistically similar, but lyrically different cut.
He sings four verses. This is is the first:
Well I had a little girl, she little and low.
She used to love me, but she don’t no more.
She shook it up and go X2
Well she shook it up and go, boys, she shook it up and go.
It does share a verse with the Blind Boy Fuller take:
Well the front door shut, back door too.
Blinds pulled down, what you gonna do.
In 1961 Dr Harry Oster recorded Snooks Eaglin in New Orleans, for Prestige/Bluesville.
Eaglin was born in The Crescent City in 1936, and he was a sophisticated and accomplished urban Blues musician who contributed superb electric guitar to many recordings. I suspect Dr Oster may have encouraged him to play acoustic to better fit the folk aesthetic. Either way, his 12-string sounds fantastic. All the usual verses are here, and it’s back to “Bottle up and go.”
He answers his ‘nickel’ line with, “Come on pretty baby, let’s buy some wine.”
Finally, for this segment, K. C. Douglas’ 1960s waxing.
Douglas was born in Mississippi. He moved to California in 1945, where Chris Strachwitz sought him out to make an album for Bluesville. They really embraced the concept of stereo recording on this one.
John Lee Hooker
I thought I’d deal with John Lee Hooker’s versions separately.
He first recorded, ‘Bundle Up And Go’ for VeeJay in Chicago in 1958.
Accompanied by bass and drums, he sings of nickels and chickens and ” You may be old, you may be grey, you ain’t too old for to shift them gears.”
The first verse answers the ‘nickel’ line with “A house full of children and ne’er one mine.” Rather than ‘high-powered’ women, John Lee has a ‘high pile of women”.
In 1959 he recorded two versions. A solo, acoustic, Bundle Up And Go:
And a rocking, ‘You Gotta Shake It Up And Go” with horns and a rhythm section:
Here. he includes a ‘scat’ verse and alternates his ‘high pile of women’ with high-powered ones. Towards the end of the recording it sounds like someone is knocking in nails with a hammer. Maybe they were having some work done in the studio.
In 1965 John Lee Hooker recorded his only album for the Impulse label. On this slow, brooding, masterful version he is backed by an alert, sympathetic Jazz rhythm section.
Finally, in 1971 Hooker made the album, Hooker N Heat. On it, he recorded this version of Bottle Up And Go with Al Wilson on piano:
The list above is by no means exhaustive or complete, but hopefully it shows the flexibility and variety of forms and themes in Blues.
Mat Walklate 2025.