Alan Govenar Read Online Free Page B

didn’t record it until 1949. 12 In the first stanza, the tone was at once a lament and an admonition.
    Yeah, you know there’s people raidin’ in Europe
They’re raidin’ on both sea, land, and air (x2)
Yes, you better be mighty careful, little girl
Your man might have to go over there
    But then, in the second stanza, Sam admitted:
    You know, my girlfriend got a boyfriend in Europe
That fool’s already crossed the sea (x2)
You know, I don’t hate it so bad
That’s a better break for me
    In the last stanza, he alluded to what might have been a draft notice, and even if it wasn’t his, he sang in the first person: “Yes, I got a letter this morning/Sayin’ practically all these boys got to go,” and then ended the song by advising those who don’t want to serve to move away (so that Uncle Sam doesn’t catch them): “Yes, if you’re goin’ live bad, son, don’t live here no more.”
    The fact that Sam never served in the military during World War II probably contributed to his decision to move to Houston, where he could get away from his past and build a new life for himself. He rented a room in a boarding house in the Third Ward. 13 While Sam said he was married at the time, he never identified which of his “wives” was with him. Years later, he liked to boast that he’d written songs about “practically every wife” he ever had and often named Ida Mae, Katie Mae, Mary, and Glory Be, even though he was never legally married to any of them. In most instances, he referred to these women as common-law wives, though it appears that he used the title
wife
in the same sense that men use
girlfriend
today, meaning somebody he was sleeping with but not married to. Certainly, at that time living with a woman out of wedlock was considered sinful, and his use of the term
wife
was probably just a ruse to cover these illicit affairs. “I been married to ten common-law wives,” he said, but for him, his first wife had special significance: “The first woman that you marry, that was your wife until she die…. But you know, that’s just an old saying. You can grab a license and marry twenty times. But the first wife is the only one.”
    However, he claimed, “Every time I get ready to go, I just throw the divorce money up on the table and the paper’s already signed. I’m gone. I done bought about seven divorces. I love these women. You know what I mean? But if they make me mad, I’m gone. Good-bye, honey, because there’s another somewhere else, just like the saying goes, ‘For the flower that blooms, there’s another of a different color.’ White flowers, blue flowers, I can pick any kind I want. And if I got a blue one that makes me mad, I go get me a red one. I kind of like to pick my flowers, and if I get hot, I pick a good one.” 14
    No records of any of Sam’s “divorces” have ever been found. His daughter from his first wife, Anna Mae Box, had in her possession the marriage certificate for Hopkins and her mother, Elamer, but wasn’t sure whether or not they were ever legally divorced, which might explain why there are no records of any of Sam’s other “marriages.” 15 Hopkins did his best to avoid the judicial system by moving around, and his desire to play music, gamble, and carouse trumped being a responsible father and raising a family. Once Sam moved to Houston, Anna Mae lost contact with him.
    During his first year in Houston, Sam mainly played in the little cafes and honky tonks, like those ridiculed in the
Houston Informer,
near where he lived in the Third Ward, though he did venture off into the Fourth and Fifth Wards as well as the surrounding areas. “I used to sing on Dowling Street,” he explained, and then “go to Fourth Ward and Fifth Ward, and back to the Third Ward. That was my run. I’d get money. They would give it to me.