zzzl | Rider Story (2)

In this column: Easy Rider, Pimp Walk, Rider, Day Rider, Ghost Rider, Leadbelly, Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lennon/McCartney, Jim Morrison, Stan Jones

EASY RIDER

When "easy rider" is used for a sexual partner, the word "easy" for a woman and a man has a different meaning. For a woman it is an expression of admiration, for a man the significance is lightly or faithless.

When you see me coming, hoist your window high
When you see me leaving, hang your head and cry
(C.C.Rider, Leadbelly, 1935)

Blind Lemon Jefferson sang a variation with "Corinna Blues", 1926.
A great tall engine: and a little small engineer
Carried the woman away Lord: and left me standing here
.....
If you see Corinna : tell her to hurry home
I ain't had no true love: since Corinna been gone

But in the end "the blues ain't nothing but a good woman on your mind" (Leadbelly and Jefferson).

Blind Lemon Jefferson – Corrina blues

EASY RIDER / FREE RIDER / FREELOADER

An easy rider in the sense of a free rider / freeloader is a person who is independent and moves on the next day.
In the movie "Easy Rider" the man on the bike and the bike are easy riders.

Dennis Hopper's movie "Easy Rider".
Dennis Hopper's movie "Easy Rider".

Some easy riders had a distinctive gait "the pimp walk". The term arose as a slang expression in the mid-1900s to describe the strut of the succesful pimp. It is a kind of limping; a distinctive style of slow strutting or swagger-walking associated with street culture and black style. A demonstration of cool masculinity.
It has been said that this way of walking might have started after someone drank methanol poisoned moonshine. Moonshine with toxic methanol, that affected the brains which caused a limp.

DAY RIDER, DAY TRIPPER, GHOST RIDER

A Dayrider is a ticket that allows you to make as many journeys as you like for one day in your chosen zone.

Lennon/McCartney wrote:
Got a good reason for taking the easy way out
Got a good reason for taking the easy way out now
She was a day tripper, a one way ticket yeah
It took me so long to find out, and I found out

A rider is also a document that states the special things a band wants: a list of requests for the comfort of the artist and a technical rider, which specifies the types of equipment to be used, the staff to be provided, and various business arrangements.

Jim Morrison (The Doors) sang "Riders on the storm". The song was inspired by the song "Ghost Riders in the Sky: A Cowboy legend" written in 1948 by American songwriter Stan Jones.
A folk tale of a cowboy (a rider on horseback) who has a vision of red-eyed, steel-hooved cattle thundering across the sky, being chased by the spirits of damned cowboys. One warns him that if he does not change his ways, he will be doomed to join them.

The Doors – Riders on the storm

Sources: pancocojams.blogspot.nl, americanbluesscene.com, YouTube, Wikipedia, Hudson Motors Compagny, Archive Minneapolis, The Cruel Plains, M.H.Price a.o., truewestmagazine.com, The Austin Chronicle, Cambridge Free English Dictionary, Oxford Dictionary, TheSaurus.com, dragonjazz.com/grablue/blues_travel, Encyclopedia of African American Popular Culture, Blues by Paul Breman, Blues by David Harrison,