Comments: 11

• Elmore Orless from Bridport, Dorset UkGreat bit of blues history, for which many thanks to both Songfacts and various comment contributors: whatever 'Dust My Broom' means in a literal sense - starting over or masturbation - musically Elmore James' 'Dust My Broom' is a slide guitar masterpiece and soundtrack to my teenage years in the 1960s.
• Kevin from Everett, WaJumping the broom is taking up a formal relationship with a woman. So, if you were ready to move on to another woman, you would have to dust off that broom to get ready for a new relationship. which is consistant with the meaning being to start over or starting clean.
• Rock from Shreveport, La"Dust My Broom" means to clean out and start over. I live in the delta country and have heard this all my life. All the phrases and stories written into Robert Johnson's music is pretty much common down here except for a few of the old words that most don't hear any more, like 'a no good "Doney", which is a loose woman. He may also have 'borrowed' lyrics from an old street musician named Oscar "Buddy" Woods in Shreveport, Louisiana while laying over and waiting for the train to Dallas to do his second recording in 1937. His first was in San Antonio in 1936. The lyrics mentioned are in "Love In Vain" and are..."When the train left the station..there was two lights on behind, the blue light was my blues, and the red light was my mind. Wood's lyrics in "Flyin' Crow Blues" went..."She's gone, she's gone...got that red and blue light on behind, oh the red light's for danger, blue light's for worried mind." Blues men did this all the time back then. They would even turn away from the crowd when playing a new hot lick on their guitar so no one in the audience could copy it. Remember, this was the beginning of what would become the most influential music genre of all time...The Blues
• Guitorb from Warsaw, In That is highly plausible B.T..Why would you dust your broom? The broom is the tool for dusting. In the context and questionable virtues of the woman in subject("so my friends can have my room"),masturbation may have been preferred to the risk of contracting S.T.D.
  That's the blues,no subject is too reproachable to wail about. Howlin' Wolf,who toured with Robert Johnson,was quoted as saying that the blues was a code that the establishment couldn't break. These cats were way ahead of censorship.
• Mike from Hicksville, NyZZ Top Cover this on their Deguello Album, Johnny Winter does a version on Progressive Blues Experiments
• Joshua from Twin Cities, MnFleetwood Mac also covered this song, very early in their career (1967 or so, long before Stevie Nicks or Lindsey Buckingham entered the picture), under the title "I Believe My Time Ain't Long". Their rendition appears on their 1992 boxed set 25 Years: The Chain.
  
• Stefanie from Rock Hill, Scthere's a website that contains the lyrics to Robert Johnson's version. It's http://www.deltahaze.com/johnson/lyrics.html. For the most part, both versions have very similar lyrics. If you want me to I could post the lyrics though. I have the website bookmarked.
• Stefanie from Rock Hill, ScIt wasn't recorded in 1926 or 27. It was recorded in 1936 or 37 by Robert Johnson. I think his version is on King of the Delta Singers Volume 2, and I know it's on the Complete recordings. Btw, if you like 1930's blues, you'll love Johnson! He's incredible!! It's ashame he died so young.
• Jarvis from Ranch Fer Boys, GaLillian McMurry was the aunt of Webb Wilder, Nashville/XM radio personality and Electrifying Artist.
  
  Sonny Boy Williamson's "Eyesight To The Blind" was also on the Trumpet label.
• Sailor from San Antonio, TxI beleive "dusting the broom" is an allegory to "starting clean" or "starting over"
  He is using the broom as the symbol of the his life with the woman and now since she is cheating he is clean out the broom and moving on.
• B from T., Canadaits not 50's slang, the original track was recorded by Robert Johnson in 1926 or 1927, and im not completely sure, but i think that it is slang for masturbation.

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