Going To Meet The Man

What Going To Meet The Man Actually Is

If you run into the phrase Going To Meet The Man and have no idea where it comes from, you are not alone. It is most commonly known as a 1960 blues track recorded by Muddy Waters on the album of the same name. The song has been covered many times since then — the Rolling Stones did a version on their debut album, and countless blues and rock musicians have tackled it. It is not some kind of software, tool, or downloadable resource. It is a song. People sometimes search for it expecting to find a tutorial or a kit, and they come away confused. Let me save you that trouble. The original recording features Muddy Waters on vocals and guitar, with a typical late-era Chess Records band setup: bass, drums, and often harmonica. The song draws heavily from the Delta blues tradition, using a standard 12-bar blues structure in the key of E. The lyrics are somewhat ambiguous, which has led to a lot of discussion over the years. Some listeners read it as spiritual, others as romantic, and some take it more literally. Muddy himself never gave a definitive explanation, so the meaning stays open.

Going To Meet The Man – Background and Context

McKinley Morganfield, known as Muddy Waters, moved from Mississippi to Chicago in the early 1940s and became one of the central figures in electric blues. By 1960, when he recorded Going To Meet The Man, he had already laid down a lot of his most famous work. The song appeared on the album Go To Head Your Pain? No, it appeared on the album titled Go With Me / Going To Meet The Man? Let me be precise: the song is from the 1961 album Going To Meet The Man, released on Chess Records. It was recorded during a period when Muddy was experimenting with slightly more polished production while still keeping the raw edge that made his earlier work stand out. I once spent an afternoon trying to figure out whether there was an instrumental guitar tablature widely available for this song. There is not one that is both accurate and free. Most tabs you find online are either wrong or incomplete. I ended up learning it by ear, which is probably the only honest way to do it anyway. The tuning is standard EADGBE. The chord shapes lean heavily on open E, A, and B7, with occasional slides between the fifth and fourth positions on the lower strings. If you want to play it, start slow. The feel is what matters here, not speed. One thing beginners consistently get wrong is the tempo. This song sits somewhere around 72 to 76 beats per minute in the original, but the groove is not straight. It has a slight swing to it, a blues shuffle feel that changes how you should articulate the chords. Play it too straight and it sounds like a church hymn. Play it with the right push and pull and it sounds like Muddy. I learned this the hard way when a guitarist in a local session tried to play it with a rigid strum pattern. We stopped after two bars. Nobody said anything. We just started over.

If you are looking for a download link for the song itself, you can find the original recording on streaming platforms like Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube Music, and Amazon Music. The album is widely available. There is also a live version from 1964 at the Olympia in Paris that some people prefer because it feels more raw and immediate. That one is on YouTube if you search for "Muddy Waters Olympia 1964 Going To Meet The Man." The cover by the Rolling Stones appears on their 1964 self-titled debut album. Mick Jagger does the vocals and Keith Richards plays guitar. Their version is faster, more aggressive, and less nuanced than Muddy's. It is still worth listening to if you want to understand how this song crossed over into rock. But if your goal is to understand the blues as it was meant to be played, go straight to the source. Everything else is a variation. There is also a James Baldwin short story collection titled Going To Meet The Man, published in 1965. The title story is different from the song, though Baldwin may have been aware of the Muddy Waters track. The collection deals with race, sexuality, and power in America. If that is what you were looking for, it is available as a book from any major retailer. Not something I can link here, but you will find it easily enough.

I should mention one practical issue that comes up when people try to learn this song: the vocal range. Muddy Waters sang it in a range that works for baritones and tenors, but if you are a higher tenor or a bass, you may need to adjust the key. Transposing it down a half step or a whole step usually works without losing the character of the piece. Don't try to belt it in the original key if your voice is not built for it. You will sound strained and the song suffers for it. I have seen people do this at open mic nights more times than I care to count. Another thing worth noting is the harmonica part. Paul Butterfield played harmonica on some sessions around this era, and while he may not be on this specific track, the harmonica interplay in Muddy's band was always a key element. If you are playing solo and want to add harmonica, stick to simple fills in the E blues scale. Do not overdo it. The song does not need constant decoration. A few well-placed notes between vocal phrases will do more than a continuous solo. If you want to dig deeper, there is a book called Muddy Waters: The Chess Years by Gerard S. Herzhaft that covers this period in detail. It is not a step-by-step tutorial, but it gives you the historical and technical context that most online resources skip. I found it useful when I was trying to understand why Muddy chose certain chord voicings over others. The answer usually comes down to what sounded right in the room at the time, not what is theoretically correct on paper.

So to sum up where this leaves us: Going To Meet The Man is a blues song, not a product you download. Learn it by ear if you can, or use a reliable tab if you must, but expect to spend time getting the feel right. Listen to the original first. Then listen to the Stones version. Then decide which approach fits what you are trying to do. There is no single correct answer, only what works for your voice, your instrument, and your audience.