Joan Baez/Bill Wood - Careless Love (Lyrics) [HD]

Joan Baez (with Bill Wood) sings the traditional song 'Careless Love' from the 1963 Squire album called 'The Best of Joan Baez'; this album contains songs from the 1959 Veritas album 'Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square' in which Baez sang with Bill Wood and Ted Alevizos. The lyrics are in the video and below with notes about the song and album.

[Vinyl/Lyrics/12-Images/WAV]

Careless Love (Singers: Joan Baez, Bill Wood)

Careless love, oh careless love
Careless love, oh careless love
Careless love, oh careless love
You see what careless love has done

When I wore my apron low
When I wore my apron low
When I wore my apron low
You follow me through rain or snow

Now my apron strings won't pin
Now my apron strings won't pin
Apron strings won't pin
Well, now my apron strings won't pin
You pass my door and you won't come in

How I wish my train would come
I wish my train would come
How I wish my train would come
I wish my train would come
How I wish my train would come
And take me back where I come from

Now you see what careless love can do
See what careless love can, careless love can do
Well, see what careless love can do
Make you kill yourself and your sweetheart too

Songwriter: Traditional song (arranged by Joan Baez & Bill Wood)

Wikipedia states:

"Careless Love" is a traditional song, with several popular blues versions. The lyrics vary, but usually speak of the heartbreak brought on by "careless love". Frequently, the narrator threatens to kill a wayward lover:

Love, oh love, oh careless love
You fly to my head like wine
You've ruined the life of many a poor girl
And you nearly wrecked this life of mine

"Careless Love" was one of the best known pieces in the repertory of the Buddy Bolden band in New Orleans, Louisiana, at the very start of the 20th century; and it has remained a jazz standard and blues standard. According to the Crescent City cornetist Joe "Wooden" Nicholas, Bolden himself composed it. The lyrics were first published in 1911 by Howard W. Odum in the Journal of American Folklore. Hundreds of recordings have been made in folk, blues, jazz, country, and pop styles; versions include those by Bessie Smith, Ottilie Patterson, Pete Seeger, and George Lewis. Big Joe Turner recorded it several times over his long career. T. Texas Tyler recorded a version in 1946 for 4-Star Records. Gospel great Mahalia Jackson credited Bessie's Smith's 1925 Columbia recording in particular as having influenced her vocal style.

Fats Domino made a recording of it in 1951, and it has also been sung by Eddy Arnold, Entrance, Louis Armstrong, Karl Denver, Bing Crosby included the song in a medley on his album 101 Gang Songs (1961), Eartha Kitt, Lonnie Johnson, Blind Boy Fuller, Dave Van Ronk, Lead Belly, Odetta, Lee Wiley, Janis Joplin, Siouxsie Sioux, Suzy Bogguss, Joan Baez, Ray Charles, Ace Cannon, Ronnie Lane, Dr. John, Madeleine Peyroux, Bob Dylan, Bill Monroe and Johnny Cash, Frankie Laine, Skip James, Brownie McGhee, Snooks Eaglin, Harry Connick Jr., French composer and clarinettist Jean-Christian Michel and Italian songwriter and singer Lucio Dalla in his debut single in 1964 and Hugh Laurie on his 2013 album Didn't It Rain.

Folksingers 'Round Harvard Square is the first album featuring Joan Baez. The album was recorded by Stephen Fassett in Boston, May 1959 with Joan Baez, Bill Wood and Ted Alevizos. Only six of the eighteen tracks on this album were solos by Baez. In 1963, an unauthorized reissue of the album was released on Squire Records as The Best of Joan Baez (minus the four tracks that did not contain Baez' vocals), but was withdrawn after Baez took legal action against it (by which time the album had already made the top-fifty on the U.S. albums charts.