The lyrics "Jesus goin' a-make up my dyin' bed" appear in historian Robert Emmet Kennedy's Mellows – A Chronicle of Unknown Singers published in 1925, on Louisiana street performers, and also listed in the Cleveland Library's Index to Negro Spirituals.

[5] Johnson performed the song as a gospel blues with his vocal and slide guitar accompaniment, using an open D tuning with a capo resulting in a pitch of E flat.

In 1932, Martha Emmons published a nine-stanza, nine-refrains, version that she heard in Waco, Texas, under the title "Tone de Bell Easy".

[7] The song gained greater prominence in popular music when Bob Dylan included a version and gave himself credit (along with several others dealing with the subject of death) on his 1962 eponymous debut album.

The guitar is fretted with the lipstick holder makeshift slide he borrowed from girlfriend, Suze Rotolo, who sat devotedly and wide-eyed through the recording session.

John Bonham's drums were recorded with a distinctive reverb effect, in the same manner as on the track "When the Levee Breaks" from Led Zeppelin's fourth album.

[13] Record producer Rick Rubin has remarked on the song's structure, "The bass line in the fast grooves is so interesting and unexpected.

"[14] Led Zeppelin performed "In My Time of Dying" during the 1975 and 1977 concert tours, where Robert Plant sarcastically dedicated the song to the British Labour Party's Chancellor of the Exchequer, Denis Healey, for the tax exile issues the band was facing.

[15][16] Although performed in 1977, Plant initially was not keen on singing the song after suffering a near-fatal car crash in 1975, due to its fatalistic lyrical theme.