Don’t ease, don’t ease
Don’t ease me in
I’ve been all night long coming home
Don’t ease me in
I was standing at the corner
Talking to Miss Brown
Well I turned around, sweet mama
She was way ’cross town
So I’m walking down the street
With a dollar in my hand
I’ve been looking for a woman, sweet mama
Ain’t got no man
Don’t ease, don’t ease
Don’t ease me in
I’ve been all night long coming home
Don’t ease me in
The girl I love
She’s sweet and true
You know the dress she wears, sweet mama
It’s pink and blue
She brings me coffee
You know she brings me tea
She brings ’bout every damn thing
But the jailhouse key
Don’t ease, don’t ease
Don’t ease me in
I’ve been all night long coming home
Don’t ease me in
Words and music: traditional
Studio recording: Go to Heaven (April 28, 1980).
First documented performance: July 16, 1966, at the Fillmore Auditorium in San Francisco. A steady number in the repertoire thereafter.
Yet another popular folk and jug band number in the late fifties and early sixties, “Don’t Ease Me In” was originally recorded in the late twenties by Henry Thomas, who generally traveled under his hobo moniker, Ragtime Texas. The child of slaves, Thomas lived in East Texas and worked on the Texas-Pacific Railroad. He was middle-aged when he made his only recordings, which have been compiled on several anthologies.
The Dead’s version is fairly similar to Thomas’s, though Thomas’s vocal is more plaintive, almost sounding like Hank Williams (whom he predated, of course). One lyric difference that’s worth noting arose, no doubt, from the song being passed down through the years by players who either didn’t understand the original lyrics or chose to make them less specific. On Thomas’s original recording of the song’s chorus, for instance, he sings: “Don’t ease, don’t you ease / Ah, don’t ease me in / It’s a long night, Cunningham, don’t ease me in.” The Cunningham in the song was a well-known Texas businessman of the era who would lease convicts to work his sugarcane fields along the Brazos River. According to Mac McCormick’s biography of Thomas on the liner notes of a Herwin Records album by Thomas, “Don’t Ease Me In” was often heard along the Brazos in various local prison farms. I confess to mild bafflement on what the actual phrase “Don’t ease me in” means in the context of the song, but a 1929 song called “Easin’ In” by Texas blues singer Bobby Cadillac clearly has some sort of sexual implication. (Jackson: Goin’ Down the Road) 94