Songfacts®:

• Not to be confused with Nat King Cole's hit of the same name, "Ramblin' Rose" is a soul song originally recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis in 1962, followed by Ted Taylor three years later.
  
  Taylor started his career in the early '50s as a member of the gospel group The Mighty Clouds of Joy and the R&B group The Cadets before embarking on a solo career. An influential singer, songwriter, and producer, he first found commercial success at Okeh Records with "Stay Away From My Baby" in 1965, the same year he recorded "Ramblin' Rose" with Nashville producer Billy Sherrill.
• Written by country scribe Marijohn Wilkin, along with Fred Burch and Obrey Wilson, Taylor's uptempo wailer compares love to a ramblin' rose, a type of flower that is cultivated to spread and intertwine on arches and trellises. Taylor squeals, "Love is like a ramblin' rose, the more you feed it, the more it grows."
• Taylor's version inspired the opening track on Kick Out The Jams. Wayne Kramer, MC5's guitarist, told Songfacts: "It was a song that [Taylor] had discovered and recorded, and I used to hear it on soul radio in Detroit. We had a couple of soul stations that just played R&B. I thought, Man, that's a great song. I want to work this up with the band. I gave it a try, and I admit that I don't sing it as well as Ted sings it. If you ever hear his version, you'll hear how it really was supposed to be sung."
• Marijohn Wilkin also wrote the classic country ballad "The Long Black Veil" and the country gospel standard "One Day At A Time." Fred Burch wrote three tunes for Elvis Presley's 1967 soundtrack album Easy Come, Easy Go, and Obrey Wilson was a singer songwriter who recorded country soul songs like "Sho Nuff You Can" and "Hey There Mountain," a track Phil Spector produced for Snuff Garrett.
• MC5's version was used in the 2004 movie Childstar, starring Mark Rendall and Jennifer Jason Leigh.