Songfacts®:

• In this song, Howlin' Wolf sings about how he should have left his woman a long time ago, imagining how much better he would have it if he went to Mexico when he had the chance. Now, he's down here on the killing floor.
  
  It's been speculated that the "killing floor" is a slaughterhouse, but according to Hubert Sumlin, who played guitar on the song, it has a very different meaning. Sumlin told American Blues Scene that Wolf played the field, with several ladies in his stable. One of them, a woman named Helen, was so fed up with his philandering that she got a shotgun filled with buckshot and fired at him from a second-floor window.
  
  So, the "killing floor" is a metaphor for depression, in Wolf's case triggered by a woman who was so mad she was literally trying to kill him.
• Wolf wasn't the first to use the phrase "killing floor" in a song; the Mississippi blues musician Skip James recorded "Hard Time Killing Floor Blues" in 1931. James' version was re-released in 1964, a year before Wolf recorded his "Killing Floor."
• Artists to cover this song include Albert King, Jimi Hendrix and Otis Rush.
• Slash covered the song for his 2024 solo blues album Orgy Of The Damned. The track is a powerhouse collaboration with AC/DC's frontman Brian Johnson on vocals and Aerosmith's Steven Tyler on harmonica.
  
  "'Killing Floor' is one of my favorite Howlin' Wolf songs, but also one of the iconic blues riffs that turned me on as a young guitar player," said Slash. "I've always wanted to cover it in some capacity and this record was the perfect vehicle."
• Speaking to Swedish radio station Rokklassiker about his version of "Killing Floor," Slash revealed how getting Brian Johnson and Steven Tyler on board involved a mix of pre-planning and delightful happenstance.
  
  "All I would do is pick the songs and then think who I would want to sing 'em," Slash explained. "And Brian was the first guy I thought of [for 'Killing Floor']."
  
  It turns out Johnson was just as enthusiastic. "He was really excited about it, because he was very much influenced [by] and covered Howlin' Wolf in his younger years," Slash said. "So he got permission from the AC/DC guys to go ahead and do it, and I went and met with Brian in Florida [where Johnson lives], and he just did this great version of the song."
  
  But the story doesn't end there. When it came to Steven Tyler, things took a more spontaneous turn. "I told him I was doing it, on the phone," Slash recalled, "and he offered to play harmonica. I didn't ask him. And he came down that day and put it on. It was great. You know, it was very spontaneous... we had a good hang that day."