Ry Cooder – Do Re Mi

California is the garden of edenIt’s a paradise to live in or seeBut believe it or notYou won’t find it so hotIf you ain’t got the do re mi

Guitar player extraordinaire Ry Cooder… everything he plays has feeling and soul. This song just rolls and doesn’t skip a beat. I want to thank Clive for bringing Ry Cooder up a month or so ago, before I posted another Cooder song. I usually don’t post songs by the same artist so close together, but I made an exception in this case. 

Cooder is an excellent musician and one of the great slide players of our time. He contributed to the Rolling Stones’ albums Let It Bleed and Sticky Fingers and was briefly considered as a replacement for Brian Jones. Some say he wrote the riff to “Honky Tonk Woman.”

The song was written by Woody Guthrie as a warning to the Okie dreamers heading west during the Great Depression. It’s a cautionary folk tale wrapped in wit. But when Ry Cooder tackles it on his 1970 self-titled debut album, he swaps Woody’s acoustic for a blues groove that you won’t forget. 

I’ve talked about guitar tone here before, and this is great. It moans. It sings. It talks back. He plays like he’s got some blues legends in his hand. Each lick feels like it was pulled straight from the dirt.

What makes Cooder’s take so great isn’t just the craftsmanship, it’s the context. Coming out in 1970, on the heels of the Nixon unease and the Vietnam burnout, Ry drags this Depression-era ballad into a new kind of storm.

Do Re Mi

Lots of folks back east they sayLeaving home most every dayBeating the hot old dusty wayTo the California line

Across the desert sands they rollGetting out of that old dust bowlThink they’re coming to a sugar bowlBut here’s what they find

Police at the port of entry sayYou’re number fourteen thousand for today

Hey, if you ain’t got the do re mi, boyIf you ain’t got the do re miWell, you better go back to beautiful TexasOklahoma, Kansas, Georgia, Tennessee

California is the garden of edenIt’s a paradise to live in or seeBut believe it or notYou won’t find it so hotIf you ain’t got the do re mi

You want to buy a home or a farmThat can’t do nobody harmTake your vacation by mountains or seaDon’t swap your old cow for a carYou better stay right where you areBetter take this little tip from me

Well, I look through the want ads every dayThe headlines in the papers always say

Hey, if you ain’t got the do re mi, boyIf you ain’t got the do re mi…

California is the garden of edenIt’s a paradise to live in or seeBut believe it or notYou won’t find it so hotIf you ain’t got the do re mi

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Author: Badfinger (Max)

Power Pop fan, Baseball, Beatles, Alternative music, old movies, and tv show fan. Also anything to do with pop culture in the 60s and 70s... I'm also a songwriter, bass and guitar player. Not the slightest bit interested in politics at all.

32 thoughts on “Ry Cooder – Do Re Mi”

  2. Both versions are great, but the live one kicks it up several notches. Ry has been one of my main guys ever since I found out about him. I was stunned when I found out that he and Taj Mahal were in a group together. What a wealth of talent. Very apt for Labor Day. No work, no Do-Re-Mi.

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  3. Pingback: Ry Cooder – Do Re Mi – MobsterTiger

  8. I couldn’t hear the geetar on the first video, but it comes through in its beauty and finesse in the 2nd. Woody Guthrie was a damfine songwriter. I remember the one trip I took to CA back in 2008 and saw how expensive it was. Woody’s right, better for a vacation and not a lifestyle unless you got that do …

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    1. I’m really good friends with our HR director and have been for years… she moved back to California. She has told us that if we ever wanted to come to California that we could stay there with her and she would take us around. We need to do that.

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      1. Max, I wouldn’t pass up an invite like that. Everybody needs to see it at least once. We drove along Highway 101, where the ocean is on one side and mountains/foothills on the other. Would like to take that train they have that goes along it one day.

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      2. I want to see all of those silent movie locations, the ones that still exist and all the usual stuff. I would have a long list of locations…where Clara Bow lived…where Buster Keaton shot this or that movie…too much to do in a week lol.

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  10. My first conscious exposure to Ry Cooder was the incredible soundtrack to the 1984 Wim Wenders picture “Paris, Texas.” His spare acoustic slide guitar playing gave me chills – still does! A few years later, my German music friend and former bandmate Gerd gave me a vinyl copy of Cooder’s 1979 studio album “Bop Till You Drop” – so good!

    I’ve also listened to some of Cooder’s other music and occasionally have covered him on the blog. I immediately recognized the cover of his self-titled debut album but didn’t recall “Do Re Mi” – thanks for the reminder. I should definitely listen to more of Cooder’s music!

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    1. I guess my first exposure was Crossroads…he did the coolest bits in that movie.
      Yea man…everything I listen to is quality…it’s really impressive. I just love his pick of covers as well.

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