The song has become something of a blues standard, having reached number 5 in the Billboard R&B chart when first released. It was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame “Classics of Blues Recordings” category, as well as being included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame‘s list of the “500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll,” and was ranked by Rolling Stone magazine in its list of “500 Greatest Songs of All Time”.

The song is basically a raunchy number, both musically and lyrically, full of male sexual bravado. When Muddy sings “I’m a natural born lover,” and “I passed 21, I want you to believe me baby, I had lots of fun,” and “I’m made to move you honey,” there’s really no doubt as to what he’s talking about. He also says he’s a “hoochie coochie man” – the hoochie coochie was a sexually provocative dance that became wildly popular in Chicago in the late nineteenth century. The dance was performed by women, so a “hoochie coochie man” either watched them or ran the show.

The song’s chorus goes:

I’m a man
Spell M-A child -N
That represents man
No B-O child -Y
That mean mannish boy.

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Despite the clear sensuality of the song, there’s something more going on in the song. In the Southern states under Jim Crow, including Mississippi where Muddy Waters grew up, a black man was never recognized as anything other than a “boy.”

I love this tweet. Why? Because this two years ago this Friday (3/16/16), I was humbled and honored to be nominated to the SCOTUS by @POTUS44. @GOP refused to even meet with me.

“To me, Obama was a butt-kissing liberal. Trump is Teddy Roosevelt. He just might go in there and kick some a**,” said Paul Ambrose, 70, a retired apparel manufacturer who collects toy trains and lives by a golf course in Canonsburg, Pa. “It’s the fear factor. Kim’s kind of [pooping] his pants because Trump’s put the fear of God into him. Obama would have come and bowed. We’ve got a wild card here. We’ve got a cowboy. He ain’t on the reservation. He just may do something. That’s why they’re coming to the table. Now lock the damn door. Order coffee and doughnuts. Keep the press out. And nobody leaves until a deal is done. What can go wrong?”

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Ambrose added that he does not like Trump as a man but thinks he’s an incredibly effective executive. “Do I like him as a person? Hell no,” Ambrose said of Trump. “He’s disgusting. He’s obnoxious. I don’t know how his wife stands him. He’s got the worst haircut in the world. No manners. Insolent. Arrogant. Obnoxious. But he gets things done. He cut taxes. He’s telling NAFTA to go pound salt.”

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“He’s not just a good negotiator. He’s the best negotiator,” said Kim Shannon, 57, an ultrasound technician from Ohio, who called his decision to accept Kim’s offer “brilliant.” She downloaded “The Art of the Deal,” Trump’s 1987 book, on her Kindle and has been eager to read it. “Maybe I can learn something and help my personal finances,” she said. "He’s saved the country. It’s not done yet, but he’s going to become the greatest president to ever serve in office.”

Shannon remains as confident as ever that Trump will reverse decades of decline in the Ohio River Valley. When she was a kid in East Liverpool, Ohio, a nearby steel mill employed 6,000 people and kept the town thriving. It’s been shuttered for decades. “When I grew up, it was like Mayberry and Andy Griffith. Now it’s junkie-ville,” she said. “Everybody is in a holding pattern. We’re waiting for the factories to return, but I know they will. … For the first time in many, many years, I’m optimistic. Everything didn’t collapse at once and it will not return in one day. It’s going to take a period of years to return.”