‘Whipping Post’ is a song by The Allman Brothers Band. Written by Gregg Allman, the five-minute studio version first appeared on their 1969 debut album The Allman Brothers Band. The song was regularly played live and was the basis for much longer and more intense performances. This was captured in the Allman Brothers' 1971 double live album At Fillmore East, where a 22-minute, 40-second rendition of the song takes up the entire final side. It was this recording that garnered ‘Whipping Post’ spots on both the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's 500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll list and Rolling Stone's list of "The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time", which wrote, "the song is best appreciated in the twenty-three-minute incarnation on At Fillmore East."
Gregg Allman was 21 years old when the song was first recorded. Its writing dates back to late March 1969, when The Allman Brothers Band was first formed. Gregg had failed to make a name for himself as a musician during a late-1960s stint in Los Angeles, and was on the verge of quitting music altogether when his brother Duane Allman called and said his new band needed a vocalist. Gregg showed the band 22 songs he had written, but only ‘Dreams’ and ‘It's Not My Cross to Bear’ were deemed usable. Gregg, the group's only songwriter at the time, was commissioned to create additional songs that would fit into the context of the new band, and in the next five days he wrote several, including ‘Whipping Post’.
The blues rock song's lyrics center on a metaphorical whipping post, an evil woman and futile existential sorrow. Writer Jean-Charles Costa described the studio version's musical structure as a "solid framework of a song that lends itself to thousands of possibilities in terms of solo expansion. ... building to a series of shrieking lead guitar statements, and reaching full strength in the chorus supported by super dual-lead guitar." The result was called by Rolling Stone an "enduring anthem ... rife with tormented blues-ballad imagery".
The original ‘Whipping Post’ was recorded for The Allman Brothers Band album on August 7, 1969, at Atlantic Recording Studios in New York City. Adrian Barber was the producer, and the band spent the entire full-day session getting the song's performance to their liking. The album was released on November 4, 1969, but sold poorly, barely reaching the bottom rungs of the U.S. albums chart. ‘Whipping Post’ was placed last on the album's running order, in what writer Randy Poe described as "the classic tradition of leaving the listener wanting more".
Despite its length, the live ‘Whipping Post’ received considerable progressive rock radio airplay during the early 1970s, especially late at night or on weekends. Such airplay led to ‘Whipping Post’ becoming one of the band's more familiar and popular songs, and would help give At Fillmore East its reputation as having, as The Rolling Stone Record Guide wrote in 1979, "no wasted notes, no pointless jams, no half-realized vocals—everything counts", and of being, as Rolling Stone wrote in 2002, "the finest live rock performance ever committed to vinyl."
Label – Capricorn Records
Songwriter – Gregg Allman
Producers - Adrian Barber (studio), Tom Dowd (live)
SONG LYRICS
[Verse 1]I've been run down
I've been lied to
I don't know why
I let that mean woman make me a fool
She took all my money
Wrecked my new car
Now she's with one of my good-time buddies
They're drinkin' in some crosstown bar
[Pre-Chorus]
Sometimes, I feel
Sometimes, I feel
[Chorus]
Like I've been tied
To the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Good Lord, I feel like I'm dying
[Guitar Solo: Duane Allman]
[Verse 2]
My friends tell me
That I've been such a fool
And I have to stand by and take it, baby
All for lovin' you
I drown myself in sorrow
As I look at what you've done
But nothin' seems to change
The bad times stay the same
And I can't run
[Pre-Chorus]
Sometimes, I feel
Sometimes, I feel
[Chorus]
Like I've been tied
To the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Good Lord, I feel like I'm dying
[Guitar Solo: Dickey Betts]
[Pre-Chorus]
Sometimes, I feel
Sometimes, I feel
[Chorus]
Like I've been tied
To the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Tied to the whipping post
Good Lord, I feel like I'm dying