"I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?" is a ragtime/blues song written by Shelton Brooks

Shelton Brooks

Shelton Brooks was a popular music and jazz composer who wrote some of the biggest hits of the first third of the 20th century.Brooks was born in Amherstburg, Ontario, Canada...

 in 1913. Sometimes categorized as hokum

Hokum

Hokum is a particular song type of American blues music - a humorous song which uses extended analogies or euphemistic terms to make sexual innuendos...

, it led to an answer song

Answer song

An answer song is, as the name suggests, a song made in answer to a previous song, normally by another artist. It is also known as a response song. The concept became widespread in blues and R&B recorded music in the 1930s through 1950s...

 written in 1915 by W.C. Handy, "Yellow Dog Rag", later titled "Yellow Dog Blues". Lines and melody from both songs show up in the 1920s and 30s in such songs as "E. Z. Rider", "See See Rider", "C. C. Rider", and "Easy Rider Blues".

"I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?"

Written for the vaudeville stage, the lyrics tell of a Susie Johnson who bets on a horse race using a tip from Jockey Lee, who subsequently runs off with her money.

First verse:

Miss Susie Johnson is a crazy as can be

About that easy riding kid they call Jockey Lee.

Now don't you think it's funny, only bets her money

In the race friend jockey's goin' to be.

There was a race down at the track the other day,

And Susie got an inside tip right away

She bet a "hundred to one" that her little "Hon"

Would bring home all the "mon".

When she found out "Jockey" was not there,

Miss Susie cried out in despair

Chorus:

I wonder where my easy rider's gone today

He never told me he was goin' away.

If he was here he'd win the race

If not first he'd get a "place"

Cash in our winnings, on a "joy-ride" we'd go, right away

I'm losing my money that's why I am blue.

To win a race, Lee knows just what to do.

I'd put all my junk in pawn,

To be on any horse that jockey's on.

Oh' I wonder where my easy rider's gone.

"I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?" was first popularized on the vaudeville stage by Sophie Tucker

Sophie Tucker

Sophie Tucker was a Russian/Ukrainian-born American singer and actress. Known for her stentorian delivery of comical and risqué songs, she was one of the most popular entertainers in America during the first half of the 20th century...

. It is most noted for its performance in a 1933 movie, She Done Him Wrong

She Done Him Wrong

She Done Him Wrong is a Pre-Code 1933 Paramount Pictures comedy romance film starring Mae West and Cary Grant. Others in the cast include Owen Moore, Gilbert Roland, Noah Beery, Sr., Louise Beavers and Rochelle Hudson....

, in which Mae West

Mae West

Mae West was an American actress, playwright, screenwriter and sex symbol whose entertainment career spanned seven decades....

 sang it in a suggestive manner. It is perhaps this performance which gave it its hokum reputation.

"Yellow Dog Rag"/"Yellow Dog Blues"

In 1915, W.C. Handy wrote an answer song

Answer song

An answer song is, as the name suggests, a song made in answer to a previous song, normally by another artist. It is also known as a response song. The concept became widespread in blues and R&B recorded music in the 1930s through 1950s...

 to "I Wonder Where My Easy Rider's Gone?" which he called "Yellow Dog Rag." "Yellow Dog Rag" sold poorly. In 1919, he retitled it "Yellow Dog Blues" to take advantage of the popularity of blues, after which it sold moderately well. His song explains what became of Jockey Lee.

First verse:

E'er since Miss Susan Johnson lost her Jockey, Lee,

There has been much excitement, more to be;

You can hear her moaning night and morn.

She's wonderin where her Easy Rider's gone?

Cablegrams goes off inquiry,

Telegrams goes off sympathy,

Letters come from down in "Bam"

And everywhere that Uncle Sam

Has even a rural delivery.

All day the phone rings, but it's not for me,

At las' good tidings fill our heart with glee,

This message came from Tennessee.

Chorus:

This is your Easy Rider struck this burg today

On a southboun' rattler beside a Pullman car.

Seen him here an' he was on the hog.

All you Easy Riders got a stay away,

So he had to vamp it but the hike ain't far.

He's gone where the Southern cross' the Yellow Dog.

Dear Sue your, etc.

The "Yellow Dog" was the local name for the Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad

Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad

The Yazoo and Mississippi Valley Railroad was incorporated in 1882 and was part of the Illinois Central Railroad system . Construction began in Jackson, Mississippi, and continued to Yazoo City, Mississippi. The line was later expanded through the Mississippi Delta and on to Memphis, Tennessee...

; the "Southern" is the much larger Southern Railway.

"Yellow Dog Blues" has been recorded a number of times, mostly as an instrumental, and has become a traditional jazz standard

Jazz standard

Jazz standards are musical compositions which are an important part of the musical repertoire of jazz musicians, in that they are widely known, performed, and recorded by jazz musicians, and widely known by listeners. There is no definitive list of jazz standards, and the list of songs deemed to be...

.