Albert King – "Born Under a Bad Sign" (1967)

Born under a bad sign

Been down since I began to crawl

You think you had a bad day?  Wait until you hear about my day . . .

This morning, I got up early and made my weekly pilgrimage to the local farmers’ market.  (So far, so good.)

When I returned to the 2 or 3 Lines World Headquarters Building, I parked on the second level of the parking garage and took the elevator to our 16th-floor C-suite offices.

But moments after I got there, I realized that I had left my cell phone in my car.

So it was back to the elevator for a ride back down to the parking garage.

Once I got there, I remembered that I had left my car key back in the office – so it was back to the elevator for another ride up to the 16th floor.

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I got my car key, rode the elevator back down to the second floor, and retrieved my phone.

As I was walking back to the elevator for the ride back up to my office, it hit me that I had forgotten to go feed the family cat – which I had intended to do on my way back from the farmers’ market.  (The cat is temporarily under my care while the person with whom I formerly shared living quarters is on vacation.)  

I got in the car and started the engine, but then I remembered that I hadn’t locked my office door.  (When I left my office, I thought I was just going to make a quick trip down to my car to grab my phone and then immediately head back up – so I didn’t lock the door.)   

That meant it was back to the elevator for a ride up to 16 to lock my door, followed by a ride back down to the parking garage, followed by the short drive to my former home to check up on my cat.

Who had pooped upstairs and thrown up downstairs.   

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“Born Under a Bad Sign” was originally recorded by Albert King in 1967 and then covered by Cream the next year.

Click here to listen to Albert King’s recording of “Born Under a Bad Sign.”

Click here to buy that recording from Amazon.

Albert King – "Born Under a Bad Sign" (1967)

If it wasn't for bad luck

I wouldn't have no luck at all

Last September, a 70-year-old man walked into a Kansas City, Kansas bank and handed a teller a note that read, “I have a gun, give me money.”

In fact, the man did not have a gun – he was armed only with nail clippers and a hairbrush.  The teller didn’t know that, so she gave him $2924.

But instead of fleeing the bank with the loot, he took a seat in the bank lobby waited for police to arrive.  

After he was arrested, Lawrence John Ripple told police that he wanted to go to prison so he could get away from his wife.

Lawrence John Ripple's mug shot

Ripple could have been sentenced to up to 37 months in prison, which would have suited him just fine.  But like the singer of today’s featured song, Ripple was born under a bad sign: the judge who heard his case sentenced him to six months of home confinement!

Ripple’s lawyer told the judge that his client’s crime was the result of the undiagnosed depression he had suffered since undergoing quadruple-bypass heart surgery in 2015.  He argued that Ripple should not be sentenced to prison for his crime.

The bank teller appeared in court to urge the judge not to send Ripple to the poke.

Ripple told the judge that a prison sentence would be more of a punishment for his wife than for him.

(She doesn't look that bad,
but looks can be deceiving)

When Ripple said that, his wife had her arm up his ass and was working his mouth like a puppet.

(OK, I made that up.)

Did the judge sentence Ripple to home confinement instead of prison because he believed that sending him to jail would serve no purpose?  

Or because he believed that not being able to leave the house and get away from his wife for six months was a much worse punishment than prison time?

I'm SURE it was the former – not the latter.

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“Born Under a Bad Sign,” which was co-written by William Bell and Booker T. Jones (of Booker T. and the M.G.’s), was recorded by Albert King in 1967.  

A lot of people have covered “Born Under a Bad Sign,” including Cream, who released the song on their 1968 Wheels of Fire album.

Here’s “Born Under a Bad Sign”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: