It always starts with a Woman;
a woman with skin like sweet milk chocolate.
A woman with a voice like warm honey on a cold dark night
And brown eyes in which a man might comfortably lose his soul.

The club was cold; not much of a club really;
A drafty old barn of a building somewhere in Arkansas
A big barrel half filled with Kerosene was lit to heat the hall.
The Young black folk of the town were gathered around

Young B.B. King was playing the blues, on a guitar with no name.
That was when the fight broke out on the dance floor.
two strong men doing battle over a woman who worked at the club.
It always starts with a woman.

Punches were exchanged; in the melee someone kicked over that barrel
And fire, like a river, roared across the floor.
Everybody started to run for the only open exit.
B.B. King ran too, until he recalled he had forgotten his guitar.

She was nothing special except for the man who played her
The man who coaxed sweet sad sounds from every catgut string.
King wasn’t a rich man and that guitar was his meal ticket
So he raced back through the flames.

Just as he retrieved his guitar, the building began
Its slow sad collapse into ash and embers
He barely escaped with his life and his guitar.

Standing outside in the cold night
Looking on the ruins of what had been a good paying gig.
That was when he met Lucille;
She was the barmaid with the sweet milk chocolate skin
And a voice like warm honey on a cold dark night;
Those two men had just fought and died over
a pleasure that neither would ever possess.

That was when B.B. King christened that old beat up guitar
“Lucille”:
To remind him of this night he almost died.
to remind him never to do something that stupid again.
Like I was saying, it always starts with a woman.