Blues

Now tell me where my easy rider gone
Tell me where my easy rider gone
I need one of these women always in the wrong

Well, easy rider, standing on the road
And it´s easy rider standing on the road
I´m a poor blind man, ain´t got no where to go

I went to the depot
I mean I went to the depot and set my pistol down
The blues overtake me and tears come rolling down

(Blind Lemon Jefferson was the first great male rural bluesman to record. Blind from birth, fat and unattractive, his guitar playing and high moanning singing enabled him to keep alive by playing at country dances, bars, and barrelhouses through east Texas. Many later famous singers, like Leadbelly and John White, learned their blues style while serving as lead boys for Blind Lemon. Others, like B.B.King, were heavily influenced by the records which Blind Lemon began making in 1925 and which continued to be popular until the winter of 1929/30, when, after a boozy rent party, Blind Lemon froze to death on a Chicago street, unable to find his way through the heavy snow.)

I worry all day, I worry all night,
Everytime my man comes home he wants to fuss and fight,
When I pick up the paper to try to read the news,
Just when I´m satisfied, yonder comes the blues.

I went down to the river each and every day,
Trying to keep from throwing myself away.
I walked and I walked ´till I wore out my shoes,
I can´t walk no further, yonder comes the blues.

People have the different blues and think they´re mighty sad,
But blues about a man the worst I ever had.
I been disgusted and all confused,
Every time I look around, yonder comes the blues.

(Ma Rainey)

Yeah, I got the blues, baby,
Yeah, I got the blues, baby,
and I ain't gonna play no more, no more,
I ain't gonna play no more.

neither, as vulgar opinion would have it, a type of music, a subset of settings on the color wheel, nor a fit of sorrows, recent studies have reduced BLUES to a fungal infection in the amygdala and ventromedial cortex of the human brain. The name comes to us from the great latinate physician Galen--his samples were limited to the now relatively rare AQUATIC BLUES which are, unlike most blues today, literally bluish or blue-green in color. The preferred treatment is to slowly poison the afflicted areas with strategic doses of MADNESS--despite its negative side-effects, double-blind studies show a strong liberating effect. Mind incisions may be indicated in extreme cases.

Nobody loves me except my mother, and she could be jivin' too.

(BB King)