Fixin' To Die chords by Dave Van Ronk

Fixin’ to Die Blues is a blues song written by legendary Mississippi bluesman Booker T. Washington White. Better known as Bukka White – the name given to him by record company Vocalion. It is unclear exactly when he wrote the song. It is unique amongst the Blues “dying” songs in that its main focus of concern is how death affects the surviving family, as opposed to the more typical blues opinion that death is the natural consequence of a life lived hard and to the full. Probably the most familiar version of the song is that recorded by Bob Dylan on his first album in 1962. The melody line is significantly different from White’s, and Dylan modified some of White’s lyrics and even added entire verses of his own. It has been noted that Dylan was influenced by Folk Revivalist Dave Van Ronk’s version of the song. This possibility is borne out by Martin Scorsese’s recent documentary on Dylan – "No Direction Home" – where Van Ronk claims that Dylan used his version of “House Of The Rising Sun”, which also appears on Dylan’s first album. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.