Sitting On Top Of The World

"Sitting On Top Of The World" is one of those tunes you could find your way to through nearly any genre of American roots music. Its official origins are in the blues; it was written and recorded by the Missisippi Sheiks in 1930.

Its blues identity was solidified by a classic 1950s Howlin' Wolf version, but you could make a case that Bill Monroe's take made the song equally iconic in the bluegrass and country world. Follow that thread and you wind up with Doc Watson, then Norman Blake; follow the Wolf line of descent and you find Pinetop Perkins, Peter Keane and dozens of others, too.

To me, the most interesting part of the story is how the melody got repurposed almost immediately, and into a pair of equally iconic songs. Tampa Red's  "Things 'Bout Coming My Way" is a direct, albeit instrumental, lift of the melody, as is Robert Johnson's definitive 1930s slow jam "Come On In My Kitchen." Johnson wrote new lyrics, providing yet another potential avenue of pursuit: it's not much of a leap from "it's going to be raining outdoors" to "baby, it's cold outside," is it?