{addthis off}
"Back Door Man" is a blues song written by Willie Dixon for Howlin' Wolf, released by Chess Records as a B-side to Wolf's "Wang Dang Doodle" in 1961 (catalog no. 1777). The song is considered a classic of Chicago blues.
Single by Howlin' WolfA-side "Wang Dang Doodle"
Released 1961
Format 7" 45 rpm record
Recorded Chess Studios, Chicago, June 1960
Genre Blues
Length 2:47
Label Chess (Cat. no. 1777)
Writer(s) Willie Dixon
Producer Leonard Chess, Phil Chess, Willie Dixon
Lyrics
In southern culture, the phrase "back-door man" refers to a man having an affair with a married woman, using the back door as an exit before the husband comes home. "When everybody trying to sleep, I'm somewhere making my midnight creep / Every morning the rooster crow, something tell me I got to go / I am a back door man," Wolf sings. The promiscuous "back-door man" is a standard theme found in many blues, including those by Charley Patton, Lightnin' Hopkins, Blind Willie McTell and Sara Martin: "every sensible woman got a back-door man," Martin wrote in "Strange Loving Blues" (1925). Robert Plant references the Dixon song in Led Zeppelin's "Whole Lotta Love" (1969): "Shake for me girl, I want to be your back-door man." The phrase "back-door man" dates from the 1920s, but the term became a double entendre in the 1960s, also meaning "man who practices anal intercourse."
Music
The single was recorded in Chicago in 1960 by Howlin' Wolf (vocals), Otis Spann (piano), Hubert Sumlin and [anonymous] (guitar), Willie Dixon (bass), and Fred Below (drums). The chord progression in the refrain of the song, similar to that found in Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man" (1955), John Lee Hooker's "I'm Mad (Again)" (1957), and Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man" (1954), dates back to work songs sung during the construction of train tracks.
Cover versions
The song became an early standard cover song of The Doors, (along with Dixon's "Little Red Rooster", also written for Howlin' Wolf, and "Close to You"), and they recorded it for their 1967 debut album. The "door" of the song, like the name of the band, suggests a Blakean symbol of perception, with an awareness of the 1960s Queer-culture double entendre giving the expression an additional layer of meaning. The Doors' drummer John Densmore described the song as "deeply sexual and got everyone moving." The song also appears on The Doors' live album Absolutely Live (1970).
The song has also been covered by Guy Mitchell, Chicken Shack, Blues Project, Shadows of Knight, Bob Weir, Harmonica Slim & Hosea Leavy, Sam Gopal, T-Model Ford, Quicksilver Messenger Service, and Soul Asylum fronted by Iggy Pop at the opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Frank Marino, of the band Mahogany Rush, recorded it on Mahogany Rush Live. The song's author Willie Dixon recorded it on his 1970 album I Am The Blues. In 1984, "Back Door Man" was also covered by Viktor Lazlo. Eric Burdon performed it during his tour with ex-Doors-guitarist Robby Krieger in 1990/91. The Allman Brothers Band's "Black Hearted Woman", from their debut album, includes the line "One of these days, I'm gonna catch you with a back door man," it is a song about a woman who mistreats the male character in the song.