DUST MY BROOM

“Dust My Broom” is a blues standard originally recorded as “I Believe I’ll Dust My

Broom” by Robert Johnson, the legendary Mississippi Delta blues singer and guitarist, on

November 23, 1936 in San Antonio, Texas. This was the second song that Johnson

recorded, immediately after “Kind Hearted Woman Blues“. He adopted this song from

traditional sources. Attempts have been made to read a hoodoo significance into the

phrase ‘dust my broom’. However the blues artist Big Joe Williams, who knew Robert

Johnson, and who also believed in traditional magic, explained it as “leaving for good …

I’m putting you down. I won’t be back no more.

I’m gonna get up in the mornin’,

I believe I’ll dust my broom (2x)

Girlfriend, the black man you been lovin’,

girlfriend, can get my room

I’m gon’ write a letter,

Telephone every town I know (2x)

If I can’t find her in West Helena,

She must be in East Monroe, I know

I don’t want no woman,

Wants every downtown man she meet (2x)

She’s a no good doney,

They shouldn’t ‘low her on the street

I believe, I believe I’ll go back home (2x)

You can mistreat me here, babe,

But you can’t when I go home

And I’m gettin’ up in the morning,

I believe I’ll dust my broom (2x)

Girlfriend, the black man that you been lovin

Banjo Mountain