Allman Brothers Band – "One Way Out" (1972)

‘Cause there’s a man down there

Might be your man, I don’t know

Here’s a statistic I stumbled across while researching the previous 2 or 3 lines: the ratio of single men aged 65 or older to single women aged 65 or older is 0.33 to 1.  

In other words, there are three times as many 65-plus single men as there are 65-plus single women. 

Remember Jan and Dean’s 1963 hit, “Surf City”?  It was about a fictional surfing town where there were two girls for every boy.  

"Two girls for every boy!"

But when you’re a guy who’s 65 or older, you’re living in a place that’s even better than Surf City – a place where les femmes d’un certain âge outnumber you by three to one.

In today's featured song, the singer is canoodling with a woman in an upstairs bedroom when someone – mayhaps her husband? – unexpectedly comes to the front door.  The singer has got to eight, skate, and donate toot sweet, and there ain’t no way he’s going out the front door.  He’s got only one way out:

Raise your window, baby 

I can ease out soft and slow

When you’re a resident of 65-Or-Older City, it’s unlikely you’ll have to go out the bedroom window because the odds are you won’t be sharing that woman with another guy – not when there are three women for every man.

But don’t get too cocky.  You don’t want to end up in a Three in the Attic situation, like poor Paxton Quigley:



“One Way Out” was first released by Sonny Boy Williamson II in 1961.  The Allman Brothers Band cover was recorded at Fillmore East, but it wasn’t included on the group’s live At Fillmore East album.  Instead, it ended up on the Eat a Peach double album.  

The title for that album refers to a Duane Allman quote – “Every time I’m in Georgia, I eat a peach for peace – which drummer Butch Trucks said was a reference to the “Do I dare to eat a peach?” line in T. S. Eliot’s “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock.”  

Duane Allman (1969)

It seems that Allman, who died in a motorcycle accident just before Eat a Peach was released, was as big a fan of “Prufrock” as 2 or 3 lines is.

Martin Scorsese used “One Way Out” in the “Get him a cranberry juice” scene in The Departed:

Here’s “One Way Out”:

Click below to buy the song from Amazon:

Sonny Boy Williamson II – "Eyesight to the Blind" (1951)

Every time the little girl starts lovin'

She bring eyesight to the blind

"Eyesight to the Blind" is a classic 12-bar blues song that was written by Sonny Boy Williamson and released as a single in 1951.

The Who included a cover of the song in Tommy.  Until recently, that was the only version of the song I had ever heard.  

By Sonny Boy Williamson, I mean Alex (pronounced "Aleck") Miller, not John Lee Curtis "Sonny Boy" Williamson.

Sonny Boy Williamson I

John Lee, who was born in Tennessee in 1914 and moved to Chicago in 1934, was one of the most recorded blues musicians of the thirties and forties.  He was the first great blues harmonica player.

Alex Miller, who was born in Mississippi in 1912 (or perhaps 1908, or perhaps 1899) was also a blues singer/songwriter who could play a mean harmonica.  The sponsor of a Helena, Arkansas radio show that Miller appeared on began billing him as Sonny Boy Williamson in what appears to have been a blatant attempt to capitalize on the fame of the Chicago Williamson.

Sonny Boy Williamson II

John Lee, who was killed by a robber in 1948 – his last words were "Lord, have mercy!" – is now referred to as "Sonny Boy Williamson I."

Miller, who died of a heart attack in 1965, is known as "Sonny Boy Williamson II."

Williamson II recorded a live album with the Yardbirds at a UK club in 1963, when Eric Clapton was that group's lead guitarist. That album wasn't released until two years later.

While he was in the UK, Williamson II supposedly set his hotel room on fire while trying to cook a rabbit in a coffee percolator.  (I'm guessing drugs and/or alcohol were involved, but that's just a guess.) 

Here's "Eyesight to the Blind":

Click below to buy the song from Amazon: