Revolvin’ Jones
Willard Robison
| PROFILE | |
| Composer | Willard Robison |
| Lyricist | Willard Robison |
| Year Written | 1940 |
| About Revolvin’ Jones | |
| “Revolvin’ Jones” was was written by Will Robison, who met and collaborated with Jack Teagarden. Other well-known Robison songs include A Cottage For Sale and Don’t Smoke in Bed.In American Popular Song, Alec Wilder wrote that “Everybody loved him and many tried to help him, among them John Mercer. Mildred Bailey revered him and sang every song of his she could lay her hands on. I became aware of him in the late twenties when he recorded for Perfect Records. … He did manage, during his almost euphoric life, to write a few successful songs … but generally his songs were known only to a few singers and lovers of the off-beat and the non-urban song. He had a special flair for gentleness and childhood, the lost and the religious. I suppose it’s not part of the growth of popular music, nor perhaps were any of Robison’s songs. But if they could so much bolster John Mercer’s conviction that there was more to write lyrics about than city life, that the world of memory, of remembered sayings and scenes, was as evocative as the whispered words of lovers, then he did make a contribution.”
Willard Robison lived from 1894 to 1968. |
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Lyrics
Before he died, Jones warned his bride
When I’m gone, you behave
For every time you trifle, I’ll roll over in my grave
Long he’d been gone when she called upon the man that calls the roll
When she told him Joneses last request
He cried Bless Your Soul
We’ve got him sister, held down by heavy stones
Up here we call that twister Mister Revolvin’ Jones
We thought he came from the land of the big cyclones
For heaven’s never humdrum with that Revolvin’ Jones
Let his cloud bed stop rolling
Tell Jones to sit up straight
Then the crowd said we told him, look who’s strolling through the gate
We forgive you sister for the vows you didn’t keep
Now Revolvin’ Jones can rest his bones and we’ll all get some sleep
Fifty years he’s been turning and watching at the gate
Ain’t your ears kind of burning, he’s been talking kind of late
We forgive you sister and that’s no idle jest
Now Revolvin’ Jones can rest his bones and we’ll all get some rest
Session / Album Information
1962
“Revolvin’ Jones” was recorded on March 16, 1962 for On The Glory Road, which was to be released in 1962, but was canceled. The song was arranged by Ralph Sharon.
This recording released on:
- 1962: Columbia LP 12″: CS 8613 — On The Glory Road (release canceled)
- 1962: Columbia LP 12″ (Mono): CL 1813 — On The Glory Road (release canceled)
- 2011: Disc #22 in The Tony Bennett Complete Collection (88697874602-JK22) On the Glory Road