Going Down

I’m going down. Down, down, down, down, down.

Don Nix wrote “Going Down,” but Freddie King owned it from the first note. That opening riff—a descending cascade of pure aggression—became one of the most covered phrases in blues rock history. Led Zeppelin borrowed from it. Stevie Ray Vaughan worshipped it. Jeff Beck made it a staple of his live shows.

But nobody plays it like Freddie.

King was a different kind of blues player. Where B.B. King (no relation) was smooth and sophisticated, Freddie was a battering ram. His tone was thick and fuzzy, his attack relentless, his vibrato wide enough to drive a truck through. He didn’t just play the blues—he assaulted them.

“I got my big feet in the window. I got my head on the ground.”

The lyrics are almost beside the point. This is a guitar showcase, three and a half minutes of King demonstrating why they called him the Texas Cannonball. Every phrase hits like a punch. The rhythm section struggles just to keep up.

Freddie King died young—forty-two, heart failure, the cost of living hard. He never got the mainstream recognition of his contemporaries, never crossed over into the rock audience that would have made him rich. But every guitarist who ever plugged in a Les Paul and cranked it up owes him a debt.

Some songs you listen to.

This one runs you over.