Guitar Logic
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Muddy Waters blues - You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had
🕑 Added 2021-10-20 18:00:04 +0000 UTCOne more time, we are going to look into an outstanding blues composition. It is a timeless blues classic “You Can’t Lose What You Ain’t Never Had” by the legendary Muddy Waters.
In this song he artistically expresses his reflections about the nature of possession, which reflects in the lines like "Had a sweet little girl, I lose my baby, boy ain't that bad...Had a sweet little home, it got burned down, people ain't that bad/My own fault, people ain't that bad/You can't spend what you ain't got/You can't lose some little girl you ain't never had"
The song has many versions, the most prominent one being the one recorded in 1964 for the LP Folk Singer where Muddy Waters played with his iconic Chess session band.
It's a standard 12 bar blues with 4 cycles and a very interesting intro. The original song is in the key of C but I transposed it to the key of E because it's much easier to play and make good blues phrases. In order to make a smooth thread of melodies and phrases throughout the song I mixed chunks of Muddy's singing and his slide-guitar playing and in some parts even the whole band.
