"Death Letter", also known as "Death Letter Blues", is the signature song of the Delta blues

Delta blues

The Delta blues is one of the earliest styles of blues music. It originated in the Mississippi Delta, a region of the United States that stretches from Memphis, Tennessee in the north to Vicksburg, Mississippi in the south, Helena, Arkansas in the west to the Yazoo River on the east. The...

 musician Son House

Son House

Eddie James "Son" House, Jr. was an American blues singer and guitarist. House pioneered an innovative style featuring strong, repetitive rhythms, often played with the aid of slide guitar, and his singing often incorporated elements of southern gospel and spiritual music...

. It is structured upon House's earlier recording "My Black Mama, Part 2" from 1930. House's 1965 performance was on a metal-bodied National

National String Instrument Corporation

The National String Instrument Corporation was a guitar company that formed to manufacture the first resonator guitars.-National resonator guitar designs:...

 resonator guitar

Resonator guitar

A resonator guitar or resophonic guitar is an acoustic guitar whose sound is produced by one or more spun metal cones instead of the wooden sound board . Resonator guitars were originally designed to be louder than conventional acoustic guitars which were overwhelmed by horns and percussion...

 using a copper slide.

One commentator noted that it is "one of the most anguished and emotionally stunning laments in the Delta blues oeuvre."

Lyrics

Lyrically, the song is about a man who learns of the death of the woman he loves through a letter delivered to him early in the morning. The narrator later views her body on the cooling board

Cooling board

A cooling board is a board used to present a dead body. In winter months it would be difficult to bury the dead due to the earth being frozen, so the body is wrapped and propped in a barn until the ground thaws out...

 at the morgue

Morgue

A morgue or mortuary is used for the storage of human corpses awaiting identification, or removal for autopsy or disposal by burial, cremation or otherwise...

, attends her funeral, and returns to his home in a state of depression

Depression (mood)

Depression is a state of low mood and aversion to activity that can affect a person's thoughts, behaviour, feelings and physical well-being. Depressed people may feel sad, anxious, empty, hopeless, helpless, worthless, guilty, irritable, or restless...

.

House's lyrics draw from traditional sources. Other blues musicians recorded related songs, including Lead Belly ("Death Letter Blues"), Ishman Bracey

Ishman Bracey

Ishman Bracey was an American blues singer and guitarist from Mississippi, considered one of the most important early delta blues performers. With Tommy Johnson, he was the center of a small Jackson, Mississippi group of blues musicians in the 1920s...

 ("Trouble Hearted Blues"), Ida Cox

Ida Cox

Ida Cox was an African American singer and vaudeville performer, best known for her blues performances and recordings...

 ("Death Letter Blues"), Robert Wilkins

Robert Wilkins

Robert Timothy Wilkins was an American country blues guitarist and vocalist, of African American and Cherokee descent....

 ("Nashville Stonewall") and 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...

 ("On The Cooling Board").

Folk revival performances

"Death Letter" was the centerpiece of Son House's live performances during the blues revival of the 1960s. House often altered the tempo and lyrics for different performances of "Death Letter", occasionally playing the song more than once during the same concert. Some renditions exceeded fifteen minutes in length.

Cover versions

The song has been reworked by other major bluesmen. Skip James

Skip James

Nehemiah Curtis "Skip" James was an American Delta blues singer, guitarist, pianist and songwriter, born in Bentonia, Mississippi, died in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania....

 reworked the music and lyrics into his song "Special Rider Blues". Avant-garde blues artist Jandek

Jandek

Jandek is the musical project of an anonymous outsider musician who operates out of Houston, Texas. Since 1978, Jandek has self-released over 60 albums of unusual, often emotionally dissolute folk and blues songs without ever granting more than the occasional interview or providing any biographical...

 reworked a verse from "Death Letter" into his song "I Went Outside". Muddy Waters

Muddy Waters

McKinley Morganfield , known as Muddy Waters, was an American blues musician, generally considered the "father of modern Chicago blues"...

's closely related song about the same subject is "Burying Ground".

"Death Letter" has been recorded by several popular musicians, including The Blues Band

The Blues Band

The Blues Band is a British blues band formed in 1979 by Paul Jones, former lead vocalist and harmonica player with Manfred Mann, and vocalist/slide guitarist Dave Kelly, who had previously played with the John Dummer Blues Band, Howlin' Wolf and John Lee Hooker...

, Grateful Dead

Grateful Dead

The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...

, John Mellencamp

John Mellencamp

John Mellencamp, previously known by the stage names Johnny Cougar, John Cougar, and John Cougar Mellencamp, is an American rock singer-songwriter, musician, painter and occasional actor known for his catchy, populist brand of heartland rock that eschews synthesizers and other artificial sounds...

, Chris Thomas King

Chris Thomas King

Chris Thomas King is an American New Orleans, Louisiana-based blues musician and actor.-History:King was born in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, United States. He is the son of blues musician Tabby Thomas. He has won awards including "Album of the Year" for both Grammy Award and Country Music Awards. King...

, David Johansen

David Johansen

David Roger Johansen is an American rock, protopunk, blues, and pop singer, as well as a songwriter and actor. He is best known as a member of the seminal protopunk band The New York Dolls and also achieved commercial success under the pseudonym Buster Poindexter.-Early life:Johansen was born in...

, Tony McPhee

Tony McPhee

Tony McPhee is an English blues guitarist, and founder of The Groundhogs....

, The Derek Trucks Band

The Derek Trucks Band

The Derek Trucks Band has been called a "group of musicians that share a passion for improvisation and musical exploration" by a reviewer at Allmusic....

, The White Stripes

The White Stripes

The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...

 and The Tallest Man on Earth

The Tallest Man on Earth

Kristian Matsson is a singer-songwriter from Dalarna, Sweden. Since 2006, he has released two full-length albums and two EPs...

. The White Stripes performed part of the song live at the 2004 Grammy Awards

Grammy Awards of 2004

The 46th Grammy Awards were held on the February 8, 2004. They recognized accomplishments by musicians from the previous year. The big winners were Outkast, who won three awards including Album of the Year & Beyoncé Knowles, who won 5 Awards...

. The song has also been given a hardcore punk

Hardcore punk

Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...

 makeover by Canadian punk rock

Punk rock

Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...

 band Eamon McGrath & The Wild Dogs

Eamon McGrath

Eamon McGrath is a folk music and punk rock musician from Edmonton, Alberta and currently based in Toronto. On his own, his live performances are most often folk-oriented, where McGrath plays songs from his discography on acoustic instruments, but with a band the live show takes on a much more...

. It was also featured in the 2005 horror/suspense film The Skeleton Key

The Skeleton Key

The Skeleton Key is a 2005 American supernatural horror film starring Kate Hudson, Gena Rowlands, John Hurt, Peter Sarsgaard, and Joy Bryant. The film focuses on a young hospice nurse who acquires a job at a Terrebonne Parish plantation home, and becomes entangled in a mystery involving the house,...

. The song has also been recorded by Diamanda Galás

Diamanda Galás

Diamanda Galás is an American avant-garde composer, vocalist, pianist, organist, performance artist and painter.Galás has been described as "capable of the most unnerving vocal terror", with her three and a half octave vocal range. She often screams, hisses and growls...

, Cassandra Wilson

Cassandra Wilson

Cassandra Wilson is an American jazz musician, vocalist, songwriter, and producer from Jackson, Mississippi. Described by critic Gary Giddins as "a singer blessed with an unmistakable timbre and attack [who has] expanded the playing field" by incorporating country, blues and folk music into her...

, James Blood Ulmer, Preacher Boy

Preacher Boy

" Preacher Boy " is a jazz song written by singer Billie Holiday, and composer Jeanne Burns and published by E.B. Marks. This is one of seven songs written by or co-written by Holiday that she never recorded....

, Gov't Mule

Gov't Mule

Gov't Mule is a Southern rock jam band formed in 1994 as an Allman Brothers Band side project by Warren Haynes and Allen Woody.The band released their debut album Gov't Mule in 1995...

, and Geoff Muldaur

Geoff Muldaur

Geoff Muldaur is an American founding member of the Jim Kweskin Jug Band of Cambridge, Massachusetts; a member of Paul Butterfield's Better Days; and an accomplished solo guitarist, singer, and songwriter....

.