It was composed in a similar style to "Cruel Hearted Woman Blues" by Bumble Bee Slim (Amos Easton), which in turn was based on "Mean Mistreater Mama" by Leroy Carr accompanied by Scrapper Blackwell.

At the end of the bridge, he jumps into a higher register as Arnold does, but then maintains a controlled falsetto, which may have been based on the singing of Joe Pullum.

[3] Like Bumble Bee Slim, Johnson wrote lyrics consisting mostly of conventional twelve-bar three-line verses, but varied with an eight-bar bridge.

But there is no resignation, only anguish: I love my baby, my baby don't love meAnd I really love that woman, can't stand to leave her beShe's a kind-hearted woman, she studies evil all the timeYou wells to kill me, as to have it on your mind [1] Like many of Johnson's songs, "Kind Hearted Woman Blues" is a staple in the repertoires of many blues musicians and has been recorded by dozens of traditional and contemporary blues figures, including Muddy Waters, Robert Lockwood, Jr., Johnny Winter, David Bromberg, George Thorogood, and Keb' Mo'.

[5] On Led Zeppelin's cover of Johnson's "Traveling Riverside Blues", singer Robert Plant quotes this song with the line: "Got a kind-hearted woman/she studies evil all the time".