Baby, Won'T You Please Come Home
Les Paul ·
voice ones hear head fellas tell better dead paint lately
get harder sleep muscle spasms deep single night cold like
feel hand toe tell pour come yeah cold feel face
wear go moon feel like death come soon wanna fuck
sleep mmmmm flash eye pretty angels bright light devil soul
look hell like
A jazz standard transformed by Les Paul and Mary Ford
“Baby, Won't You Please Come Home” is a jazz and blues standard that Les Paul reshaped through the close, multi-layered sound of his partnership with Mary Ford. The song's plea for a loved one to return predates their recording by decades, but Paul's bright guitar tone and Ford's vocal give the familiar material a lighter, more intimate feel. Their arrangement blends an old popular-song form with the studio experimentation that became central to their sound.
Paul and Ford recorded the song around 1954, and it appeared on their 1955 album *Les & Mary*. Paul's guitar work and use of multitrack recording allowed him to build intricate layers, while Ford's voice could be doubled and harmonized with unusual precision. The pair's studio method made their recordings sound distinctive at a time when many popular records still relied on a straightforward live ensemble captured in one take.
The recording is not chiefly remembered as a chart hit, but it is a useful example of how Paul and Ford reinterpreted older standards through new recording technology. “Baby, Won't You Please Come Home” was written by Charles Warfield and Clarence Williams in 1919 and has been recorded by many jazz and blues artists. This version bridges that early song tradition and the postwar home-studio innovations that helped make Les Paul a major figure in the history of recorded sound.