sweet home Chicago

[Frank Abate]

Replying to Jerry Cohen's:

Johnson lived most of his life in the Mississippi delta, I believe.  I'm not sure if he was born there.  From what I have read, his bio details are a bit vague.  No one was sure, e.g., what his exact age was.  Anyway, in other songs he sings about places in the Deep South, which was where he spent much if not most of his life.  As I recall, he recorded his songs mostly in Texas.  I don't know if he was EVER in Chicago.  Not having the CDs at hand, perhaps someone else could see if Johnson wrote the song, or the lyrics, or just was covering someone else's song.

That still does not answer definitively what was meant by "California".  The context in which it is used makes it seem odd that it could have been referring to just a street, unless that street was truly renowned (locally, at least) as a center of fun or excitement.  Do you Chicagoans know this?

Frank Abate

American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> wrote:
>
>    Last week there was speculation about the meaning of Robert Johnson's
> lyrics that  he is "going back to California, to my sweet home Chicago."
>
>     Here is one more guess :  Maybe Johnson was singing to Chicago that he
> was leaving that city and heading for the place he really loved, namely
> California, which was (in the lyrics, at least) his real home.   Cf. the
> lyrics of another song:  "Good-bye Picadilly, farewell Leicester Square,
> It's a long, long way to Tipperary, and my heart is there."
>
>     Of course, if Johnson never lived in California, this interpretation
> would probably be wrong.  In that case, California might be a sort of
> mythical paradise, and Johnson would be finding heaven in his home-town
> Chicago.
>
>    ----Gerald Cohen
>  >
> >although this is not directly related to this listserv, some of you may
> >either know the answer to my question or know where I might find it.  In
> >the song Sweet Home Chicago is, Robert Johnson sings that he is "going back
> >to California, to my sweet home Chicago." does anyone know how California
> >fits in to the sense of the song?
> >
> >Patrick L. Courts
> >Professor of English
> >State University of New York at Fredonia
> >Fredonia, NY 14063
> >e-mail:  courts at fredonia.edu
> >
>
>
>
>
> gcohen at umr.edu
>