"Back Door Man" is a blues

Blues

Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...

 song written by Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...

 and recorded by Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

 in 1961. It was released by Chess Records

Chess Records

Chess Records was an American record label based in Chicago, Illinois. It specialized in blues, R&B, soul, gospel music, early rock and roll, and occasional jazz releases....

 as the B-side to Wolf's "Wang Dang Doodle

Wang Dang Doodle

"Wang Dang Doodle" is a blues song written by Willie Dixon for Howlin' Wolf at Chess Records in Chicago. It has been covered by many artists, including Love Sculpture, Koko Taylor, Z. Z. Hill, Ted Nugent, the Pointer Sisters, PJ Harvey, Grateful Dead, Ratdog, Savoy Brown, Charlie Watts, Booker T....

" (catalog no. 1777). The song is considered a classic of Chicago blues

Chicago blues

The Chicago blues is a form of blues music that developed in Chicago, Illinois, by taking the basic acoustic guitar and harmonica-based Delta blues, making the harmonica louder with a microphone and an instrument amplifier, and adding electrically amplified guitar, amplified bass guitar, drums,...

.

Lyrics

In southern

Southern United States

The Southern United States—commonly referred to as the American South, Dixie, or simply the South—constitutes a large distinctive area in the southeastern and south-central United States...

 culture, the phrase "back-door man" refers to a man having an affair with a married woman, using the back door as an exit before the husband comes home. "When everybody trying to sleep, I'm somewhere making my midnight creep / Every morning the rooster crow, something tell me I got to go / I am a back door man," Wolf sings. The promiscuous "back-door man" is a standard theme found in many blues, including those by Charley Patton, Lightnin' Hopkins

Lightnin' Hopkins

Sam John Hopkins better known as Lightnin’ Hopkins, was an American country blues singer, songwriter, guitarist and occasional pianist, from Houston, Texas...

, Blind Willie McTell

Blind Willie McTell

Blind Willie McTell , was an influential Piedmont and ragtime blues singer and guitarist. He played with a fluid, syncopated fingerstyle guitar technique, common among many exponents of Piedmont blues, although, unlike his contemporaries, he used exclusively a twelve-string guitar...

 and Sara Martin

Sara Martin

Sara Martin was an American blues singer, in her time one of the most popular of the classic blues singers. She was billed as "The Famous Moanin' Mama" and "The Colored Sophie Tucker"...

: "every sensible woman got a back-door man," Martin wrote in "Strange Loving Blues" (1925). Robert Plant

Robert Plant

Robert Anthony Plant, CBE is an English singer and songwriter best known as the vocalist and lyricist of the iconic rock band Led Zeppelin. He has also had a successful solo career...

 references the Dixon song in Led Zeppelin's

Led Zeppelin

Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...

 "Whole Lotta Love

Whole Lotta Love

"Whole Lotta Love" is a song by English rock band Led Zeppelin. It is featured as the opening track on the band's second album, Led Zeppelin II, and was released in the United States and Japan as a single. The US release became their first hit single, it was certified Gold on 13 April 1970, when it...

" (1969): "Shake for me girl, I want to be your back-door man." The phrase "back-door man" dates from the 1920s, but the term became a double entendre in the 1960s, also meaning "man who practices anal intercourse."

Music

The song was recorded in Chicago in June 1960 by Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf

Chester Arthur Burnett , known as Howlin' Wolf, was an influential American blues singer, guitarist and harmonica player....

 (vocals), Otis Spann

Otis Spann

Otis Spann was an American blues musician, who many consider the leading postwar Chicago blues pianist.-Career:Born in Jackson, Mississippi, United States, Spann became known for his distinct piano style....

 (piano), Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin

Hubert Sumlin is an American Chicago blues and electric blues guitarist and singer, best known for his celebrated work, from 1955, as guitarist in Howlin' Wolf's band. His singular playing is characterized by "wrenched, shattering bursts of notes, sudden cliff-hanger silences and daring rhythmic...

 and Freddy Robinson

Abu Talib (musician)

Abu Talib was an African American blues and jazz guitarist, singer, and harmonica player.-Career:...

 (guitars), Willie Dixon

Willie Dixon

William James "Willie" Dixon was an American blues musician, vocalist, songwriter, arranger and record producer. A Grammy Award winner who was proficient on both the Upright bass and the guitar, as well as his own singing voice, Dixon is arguably best known as one of the most prolific songwriters...

 (double bass), and Fred Below

Fred Below

Fred Below was a leading blues drummer, best known for his innovative work with Little Walter and Chess Records in the 1950s. Nobody laid more of the Chicago blues rhythmic foundations, particularly its archetypal backbeat, than Fred Below.-Career:He was born in Chicago, and started playing drums...

 (drums). The chord progression

Chord progression

A chord progression is a series of musical chords, or chord changes that "aims for a definite goal" of establishing a tonality founded on a key, root or tonic chord. In other words, the succession of root relationships...

 in the refrain

Refrain

A refrain is the line or lines that are repeated in music or in verse; the "chorus" of a song...

 of the song, similar to that found in Bo Diddley's

Bo Diddley

Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...

 "I'm A Man

I'm A Man (Bo Diddley song)

"I'm a Man" is a song written and recorded by Bo Diddley in 1955. A moderately slow blues with a stop-time figure, it was inspired by an earlier blues song and became a #1 R&B chart hit. "I'm a Man" has been acknowledged by Rolling Stone magazine and has been recorded by a variety of artists,...

" (1955), John Lee Hooker's

John Lee Hooker

John Lee Hooker was an American blues singer-songwriter and guitarist.Hooker began his life as the son of a sharecropper, William Hooker, and rose to prominence performing his own unique style of what was originally closest to Delta blues. He developed a 'talking blues' style that was his trademark...

 "I'm Mad (Again)" (1957), and Dixon's "Hoochie Coochie Man

Hoochie Coochie Man

"Hoochie Coochie Man" is a blues standard written by Willie Dixon and first performed by Muddy Waters in 1954 . The song was a major hit upon its release, reaching #8 on Billboard magazine's Black Singles chart...

" (1954), dates back to work song

Work song

A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a specific form of work, either sung while conducting a task or a song linked to a task or trade which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song....

s sung during the construction of train tracks

Rail tracks

The track on a railway or railroad, also known as the permanent way, is the structure consisting of the rails, fasteners, sleepers and ballast , plus the underlying subgrade...

. "Back Door Man" was included on the 1962 Wolf compilation album Howlin' Wolf

Howlin' Wolf (album)

Howlin' Wolf is the second album from Chicago blues singer/guitarist/harmonicist Howlin' Wolf. It is a collection of six singles previously released by the Chess label from 1960 through 1962...

. He re-recorded the song in November 1968 and it appeared on The Howlin' Wolf Album

The Howlin' Wolf Album

-Personnel:*Howlin' Wolf – guitar, harmonica, vocals*Gene Barge – horn, electric sax*Pete Cosey – guitar, bowed guitar*Hubert Sumlin – guitar*Roland Faulkner – guitar*Morris Jennings – drums*Don Myrick – flute*Louis Satterfield – bass...

.

The Doors version

The Doors

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

 recorded a rock version of the "Back Door Man" for their eponymous debut album

The Doors (album)

The Doors is the debut album by the American rock band The Doors, recorded in August 1966 and released in January 1967. It was originally released in significantly different stereo and mono mixes...

. The "door" of the song, like the name of the band, suggests a Blakean

William Blake

William Blake was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognised during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of both the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic Age...

 symbol of perception, with an awareness of the 1960s Queer

Queer

Queer is an umbrella term for sexual minorities that are not heterosexual, heteronormative, or gender-binary. In the context of Western identity politics the term also acts as a label setting queer-identifying people apart from discourse, ideologies, and lifestyles that typify mainstream LGBT ...

-culture double entendre giving the expression an additional layer of meaning. The Doors' drummer John Densmore

John Densmore

John Paul Densmore is an American musician and songwriter. He is best known as the drummer of the rock group The Doors.-Early life and The Doors:Born in Los Angeles, Densmore attended Santa Monica City College and Cal...

 described the song as "deeply sexual and got everyone moving." The song also appears on The Doors' live album Absolutely Live

Absolutely Live (The Doors album)

Absolutely Live is the first live album released by American rock band The Doors in July 1970. Many shows were recorded during the 1970 tour to create the "Absolutely Live" album. The Doors producer, and long time collaborator Paul Rothchild painstakingly edited the album from many different shows...

(1970).

Other versions

The song has also been recorded by Guy Mitchell

Guy Mitchell

Guy Mitchell, born Albert George Cernik, was an American pop singer, successful in his homeland, the U.K. and Australia...

, Chicken Shack

Chicken Shack

Chicken Shack are a British blues band, founded in the mid-1960s by Stan Webb , Andy Silvester , and Alan Morley , who were later joined by Christine Perfect in 1968.-Career:...

, Blues Project

Blues Project

The Blues Project is a band from the Greenwich Village neighborhood of New York City that was formed in 1965 and originally split up in 1967. While their songs drew from a wide array of musical styles, they are most remembered as one of the earliest practitioners of psychedelic rock, as well as one...

, Shadows of Knight

Shadows of Knight

The Shadows of Knight are an American rock band from the Chicago suburbs, formed in the 1960s, who play a form of British blues mixed with influences from their native city. At the time they first started recording, the band's self-description was as follows: "The Stones, Animals and Yardbirds...

, Bob Weir

Bob Weir

Bob Weir is an American singer, songwriter, and guitarist, most recognized as a founding member of the Grateful Dead. After the Grateful Dead disbanded in 1995, Weir performed with The Other Ones, later known as The Dead, together with other former members of the Grateful Dead...

, Sam Gopal

Sam Gopal

Sam Gopal is an underground British Psychedelic rock band.The band is named after its founder, Sam Gopal, born in Malaysia...

, T-Model Ford

T-Model Ford

James Lewis Carter Ford is an American blues musician, using the name T-Model Ford. Unable to remember his exact date of birth, he began his musical career in his early seventies, and has continuously recorded for the Fat Possum label, then switched to Alive Naturalsound Records. His musical style...

, Quicksilver Messenger Service

Quicksilver Messenger Service

Quicksilver Messenger Service is an American psychedelic rock band, formed in 1965 in San Francisco.-Introduction:Quicksilver Messenger Service gained wide popularity in the Bay Area and, through their recordings, with psychedelic rock enthusiasts around the globe and several of their albums ranked...

, and Soul Asylum

Soul Asylum

Soul Asylum is an American alternative rock band that formed in Minneapolis, Minnesota in 1983.The band originally formed in 1981 under the name Loud Fast Rules, with the original line-up consisting of Dan Murphy, Dave Pirner, Karl Mueller and Pat Morley. The latter was replaced by Grant Young in...

 fronted by Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop

Iggy Pop is an American singer, songwriter, musician, and actor. Though considered an innovator of punk rock, Pop's music has encompassed a number of styles over the years, including pop, metal, jazz and blues...

 at the opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way,...

. Frank Marino

Frank Marino

Frank Marino , born November 20, 1954, in Montreal, is the guitarist and leader of Canadian hard rock band Mahogany Rush. Often compared to Jimi Hendrix, he is acknowledged as one of the best and most underrated guitarists of the 1970s.-Biography and career:After playing drums since he was five,...

, of the band Mahogany Rush

Mahogany Rush

Mahogany Rush is a Canadian rock band led by guitarist Frank Marino. The band had its peak of popularity in the 1970s, playing such venues as California Jam II together with bands such as Aerosmith, Ted Nugent and Heart....

, recorded it on Mahogany Rush Live. The song's author Willie Dixon recorded it for his 1970 album I Am The Blues

I am the blues

I Am The Blues is a Chicago blues album released in 1970 by the well-known bluesman Willie Dixon. It is also the title of Dixon's autobiography, edited by Don Snowden....

. In 1984, "Back Door Man" was also covered by Viktor Lazlo

Viktor Lazlo

Viktor Lazlo is a French-Belgian singer of Grenadian and Martiniquan descent. She studied in Belgium, where she is primarily known. Her biggest hit was "Breathless" in 1987...

. Eric Burdon

Eric Burdon

Eric Victor Burdon is an English singer-songwriter best known as a founding member and vocalist of rock band The Animals, and the funk rock band War and for his aggressive stage performance...

 performed it during his tour with ex-Doors

The Doors

The Doors were an American rock band formed in 1965 in Los Angeles, California, with vocalist Jim Morrison, keyboardist Ray Manzarek, drummer John Densmore, and guitarist Robby Krieger...

-guitarist Robby Krieger

Robby Krieger

Robert Alan "Robby" Krieger is an American rock guitarist and songwriter. He was the guitarist in The Doors, and wrote some of the band's best known songs, including "Light My Fire," "Love Me Two Times," "Touch Me," and "Love Her Madly."...

in 1990/91.