Louisiana soun… Read Full Bio ↴Robert Peterson and Robert Greenwood are the two ROBERTS.
Louisiana sound artist Peterson explores pedestrian ritual, sound as medicine and education as performance. Greenwood is part of Distro Projects, a multimedia label and transient cooperative project space which hosts, documents and archives the activities of ‘miscreant artists’. He describes what he does as “informal aesthetic exercises in environment building and rethinking locality”.
Hey Joe
Roberts Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Hey Joe, I said where you goin' with that gun in your hand? (all right)
I'm goin' down to shoot my old lady
You know I cought her messin' around with another man, yeah
I'm goin' down to shoot my old lady
You know I caught her messin' around with another man
Hey Joe, I heard you shot your woman down, you shot her down now
Hey Joe, I heard you shot your old lady down, you shot her down in the ground, yeah
Yes, I did, I shot her
You know I cought her messing around, messing around town
Yes, I did, I shot her
You know I cought my old lady messing around town
And I gather the gun
I shot her
Robert's song "Hey Joe" tells the story of a man who is on the run from the law after killing his woman. The song is a conversation between Joe and an unnamed person who is questioning him about his actions. The song opens with the question "Hey Joe where you goin' with that money in your hand?" to which Joe responds that he is going to buy a gun. The conversation then turns to Joe's relationship drama with his woman. He tells the unnamed person that he is going to find his woman who has been running around with another man.
As the song progresses, it becomes evident that Joe has lost control of his emotions and has taken the extreme step of shooting his woman. When asked about it, Joe admits that he shot her just as he said he would. The song ends with Joe saying that he is going down south where he can be free as there is no hangman there to put a noose around him.
The song's lyrics are quite explicit, and its theme is centered around crime and passion. It's a tale of a man who has been pushed beyond the limits of his emotions and has succumbed to the pressure of his circumstances. It's a reminder of the fact that sometimes people do things that they regret later, and the consequences can be severe.
Line by Line Meaning
Hey Joe where you goin' with that money in your hand
Where are you going carrying that money?
I'm goin' downtown, buy me a blue steel 44
I'm heading to the city to purchase a specific type of gun
Hey Joe, where you goin' with that gun in your hand
What are you doing holding that weapon?
I'm goin downtown find my baby she's been running with another man
I'm traveling to town to locate my partner who has been unfaithful
Hey Joe I heard you shot your lady down
Is it true that you killed your significant other?
Yes I did I shot her just like I said
Yes, I indeed did shoot her as I previously stated
Hey Joe where you gonna run to now
Where do you plan to escape to now?
I'm goin' way down south
I'm fleeing to the southern region
Ain't no hangman
There's no person authorized to execute me
Ain't no hangman
There's no individual capable of punishing me
Ain't' no hangman
There's nobody with the power to hang me
Ain't no hangman puttin' no noose around me.
There's not a single entity who can capture or harm me.
Lyrics © O/B/O APRA AMCOS
Written by: Billy Roberts
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind
@krisslee
Sheesh What a load of . . . . in the comments
"Hey Joe" was written by a singer named Billy Roberts, who was part of the Greenwich Village folk scene in the early '60s. The song is structured as a conversation between two men, with "Joe" explaining to the other that he caught his woman cheating and plans to kill her. They talk again, and Joe explains that he did indeed shoot her, and is headed to Mexico.
Billy Roberts copyrighted this song in 1962, but never released it (he issued just one album, Thoughts Of California in 1975).
In 1966, several artists covered the song, including a Los Angeles band called The Leaves (their lead singer was bassist Jim Pons, who joined The Turtles just before they recorded their Happy Together album), whose version was a minor hit, reaching #31 in the US. Arthur Lee's group Love also recorded it that year, as did The Byrds, whose singer David Crosby had been performing the song since 1965. These were all uptempo renditions.
The slow version that inspired Hendrix to record this came from a folk singer named Tim Rose, who played it in a slow arrangement on his 1967 debut album and issued it as a single late in 1966. Rose was a popular singer/songwriter for a short time in the Greenwich Village scene, but quickly faded into obscurity before a small comeback in the '90s. He died in 2002 at age 62.
This is the song that started it all for Hendrix. After being discharged from the US Army in 1962, he worked as a backing musician for The Isley Brothers and Little Richard, and in 1966 performed under the name Jimmy James in the group Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Hendrix introduced "Hey Joe" to the band and added it to their setlist. During a show at the Greenwich Village club Cafe Wha?, Chas Chandler of The Animals was in the audience, and he knew instantly that Hendrix was the man to record the song.
Chandler convinced Hendrix to join him in London, and he became Jimi's producer and manager. Teaming Hendrix with Noel Redding and Mitch Mitchell, Chandler had the group - known as The Jimi Hendrix Experience - record "Hey Joe," and released it as a single in the UK in December 1966. It climbed to #6 in February 1967, as Hendrix developed a reputation as an electrifying performer and wildly innovative guitarist.
America was a tougher nut to crack - when the song was released there in April, it went nowhere.
The song incorporates many elements of blues music, including an F-C-G-D-A chord progression and a story about infidelity and murder. This led many to believe it was a much older (possibly traditional) song, but it was an original composition.
Hendrix played this live for the first time at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. It was the first time the group performed in America.
This was released in Britain with the flip side "Stone Free," which was the first song Hendrix wrote for The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
The song was released in the UK on the Polydor label in a one-single deal. Hendrix then signed to the Track label, which was set up by Kit Lambert, producer for The Who.
Dick Rowe of Decca Records turned down Hendrix for a deal, unimpressed with both "Hey Joe" and "Stone Free." Rowe also turned away the Beatles four years earlier.
This is one of the few Hendrix tracks with female backing vocals. They were performed by a popular trio called the Breakaways (Jean Hawker, Margot Newman, and Vicki Brown), who were brought in by producer Chas Chandler.
The Hendrix version omits the first verse, where Joe buys the gun:
Hey Joe, where you goin' with that money in your hand?
Chasin' my woman, she run off with another man
Goin downtown, buy me a .44
In the original (and most versions pre-Hendrix), Joe also kills his wife's lover when he catches them in bed together.
This was the last song performed at Woodstock in 1969. The festival was scheduled to end at midnight on Sunday, August 17 (the third day), but it ran long and Hendrix didn't go on until Monday around 9 a.m. There weren't many attendees left, but Hendrix delivered a legendary performance.
While Jimi's version is by far the most famous, "Hey Joe" has been recorded by over 1000 artists. In America, three versions charted:
The Leaves (#31, 1966)
Cher (#94, 1967)
Wilson Pickett (#59, 1969)
Hendrix is the only artist to chart with the song in the UK, although a completely different song called "Hey Joe" was a #1 hit there for Frankie Laine in 1963.
Some of the notable covers include:
Shadows of Knight (1966)
Music Machine (1966)
The Mothers Of Invention (1967)
Deep Purple (1967)
King Curtis (1968)
Roy Buchanan (1973)
Patti Smith (1974)
Soft Cell (1983)
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds (1986)
The Offspring (1991)
Eddie Murphy (1993 - yes, the comedian)
Walter Trout (2000)
Popa Chubby (2001)
Robert Plant (2002)
Brad Mehldau Trio (2012)
The liner notes for Are You Experienced? say this song is "A blues arrangement of an old cowboy song that's about 100 years old." ?
The phrase "Hey Joe" is something men in the Philippines often shout when they see an American. Ted Lerner wrote a book about his experiences there called Hey, Joe: A Slice Of The City-An American In Manilla.
In an early demo version, Hendrix is caught off guard by the sound of his voice in the headphones, and can be heard on the recording saying, "Oh, Goddamn!" Then telling Chas Chandler in the booth, "Hey, make the voice a little lower and the band a little louder." Hendrix was always insecure about his vocal talents, but thought if Dylan could swing it, so could he.
6,346 guitarists played "Hey Joe" simultaneously in the town of Wroclaw, Poland on May 1, 2009, breaking a world record for most guitarists playing a single song.
The BBC apologized after "Hey Joe" was played following a report on the Oscar Pistorius trial, following the disabled athlete's shooting of his model girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp. (The song includes the lines: "Hey Joe, where you going with that gun in your hand? I'm going out to shoot my old lady, you know I caught her messing around with another man.")
This was one of five bonus tracks added to the album Are You Experienced? when it was re-released in 1997. The only song on the album not written by Hendrix, it is credited to Billy Roberts.
Not much is known about the song's writer Billy Roberts, who apparently got in a car accident in the '90s that left him impaired. Royalties from this song went to him through the publisher Third Palm Music.
This was used in the 1994 movie Forrest Gump when Forrest starts a fight at a Black Panthers gathering, but the song wasn't included on the official soundtrack.
@nancywoodward5779
Billy was one of the most beloved musicians at the Drinking Gourd in San Francisco. That was such a great little club, legendary in its time, and he never failed to pack the house. He enchanted us all. I miss him.
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@neilhenson3540
Billy Roberts (I knew him simply as Bill) was very kind to me, we played on couple of gigs together .. He always said :"You ain't any Hollywood drummer but buddy you sure can keep the beat ! " That has always stayed with me ... he was a really nice guy ...
@sinnertrain7405
I can't believe I've not heard this until now.
@mrfrogg46able
right
@rvsteve583
i'm like - WHAT???!!!!!!!AMAZING!
@allmendoubt4784
Cheated by capitalists
@jonnifjader
Maybe you have no radio?
@sinnertrain7405
To my knowledge, the original recording by Billy Roberts received little airplay (at least I'd never heard it before). If you're referring to Hendrix's cover of this song, I assume you're not the sharpest knife in the drawer. :-)
@greghoffmann7973
This is probably one of the most fun songs to play around with on an accoustic guitar. It's also a great warmup song because nobody expects a credible version on an accoustic.
@jimkostan9932
It's one of the first songs I've learned back in 19 70 on acoustic guitar House of the rising Sun, and Hey Joe.
@jjjsudjfjfjfjf
Jimi Hendrix Made a beautiful version of this song