The Thrill Is Gone

"The Thrill Is Gone" Roy Hawkins/Rick Darnell

Version – B.B. King

BB King’s most listened to (and most re-recorded) song has a lot of lyrical things that blues songwriters can learn from.

The thrill is gone

The thrill is gone away

The thrill is gone baby

The thrill is gone away

You know you done me wrong baby

And you'll be sorry someday

The thrill is gone

It's gone away from me

The thrill is gone baby

The thrill is gone away from me

Although I'll still live on

But so lonely I'll be

The thrill is gone

It's gone away for good

Oh, the thrill is gone baby

Baby it’s gone away for good

Someday I know I'll be over it all baby

Just like I know a man should

You know I'm free, free now baby

I'm free from your spell

I'm free, free now

I'm free from your spell

And now that it's over

All I can do is wish you well

This song has very similar words in the first three verses. This makes it easy to understand and listen to – it’s catchy.   

It does tell a story over the course of its four verses –

You’ll be sorry you done me wrong

I’ll be lonely but I’ll live on

I’ll get over it

I did get over it.

Much of the song’s power comes from remaining right here in the present moment, describing a particular feeling. This is a strength of the blues as a song form and it enables timeless songs.  Unlike most blues songs, however, it also tells a linear story – but it is the story of how his feelings progress, not a narrative of events.  

Another little thing that sticks out for me - the phrase “The thrill is gone” begins each of the first three verses. Then it repeats in the second line with the word “baby” added. In each verse, the second line differs just a little bit from the first line, but says the same thing. This gives the singer more room to work with, and helps bring different degrees of emotion to the lyric.

I didn't appreciate “The Thrill Is Gone” until I started playing it myself and began to understand how sing-able it is. I hadn't picked up on the emotional progression that happens in the lyrics and how much emotion the singer can put into the song.

I had to learn it for a blues competition, of all things.

I think it was the year 2007. I was a finalist in the Telluride Blues Challenge which is part of the Telluride Blues and Brews Festival held in Colorado every year. At that time, each finalist played a 15 minute set and each of us had to perform the same “compulsory” song as dictated by the Festival and communicated us one week prior to the final. That particular year the song was “The Thrill Is Gone”. 

Madman-Architect-Carpenter-Judge (in that order!)

Betty S. Flowers, an English professor at the University of Texas at Austin published an essay in 1997 entitled “Madman, Architect, Carpenter, Judge: Roles and the Writing Process.” Although her essay was directed to prose writers, the concept is even more useful for songwriters.

Flowers identifies four different personas who come into the writing process sequentially. Writing begins with the madman, who brings ideas and energy to the page, uninhibited.  Just write down any crazy thing - let imagination run wild for ten minutes and don’t stop to edit. Next comes the architect, who looks unsentimentally at the madman’s “wild scribblings,” selects the chunks that could possibly form into a song, and arranges those nuggets into verses, refrains, etc.

Along comes the carpenter, the craftsman, who does the detail work of making sure the lines are similar in length, the rhyme scheme is consistent, the words have an internal rhythm, etc. He nails the ideas together.  Finally, in comes the judge, who inspects the work, critically.

Writers get tripped up, Flowers suggests, when their judge gets in the way of their madman.

“So start by promising your judge that you’ll get around to asking his opinion, but not now,” Flowers writes. “And then let the madman energy flow. Find what interests you in the topic, the question or emotion that it raises in you, and respond as you might to a friend – or an enemy. Talk on paper, page after page, and don’t stop to judge…”

I believe many blues songwriters allow the judge to enter the process too early – he rules out topics and modern language that “don’t belong” in blues songs.  And perhaps we allow the architect to limit the song structures to blues forms that have been built over and over again in the past. Blues does have limits – but we could allow the madman to finish his part in the process before the other members of the team have their turn.