Chapter II: The Blues: Workaday Sorrow Songs

No story of the workaday song life of the Negro can proceed far without taking into account the kind of song known as the blues, for, next to the spirituals, the blues are probably the Negro’s most distinctive contribution to American art. They have not been taken seriously, because they have never been thoroughly understood. Their history needs to be written. The present chapter is not a complete statement. It merely presents some of the salient points in the story of the blues and offers some suggestions as to their rôle in Negro life.

Behind the popular blues songs of today lie the more spontaneous and naïve songs of the uncultured Negro. Long before the blues were formally introduced to the public, the Negro was creating them by expressing his gloomy moods in song. To be sure, the present use of the term “blues” to designate a particular kind of popular song is of recent origin, but the use of the term in Negro song goes much further back, and the blue or melancholy type of Negro secular song is as old as the spirituals themselves. The following song might be taken at first glance for one of the 1926 popular “hits,” but it dates back to the time of the Civil War.[5]

[5] Allen, Ware, and Garrison, _Slave Songs of the United States_, p.
89. This note is appended: “A very good specimen ... of the strange
barbaric songs that one hears upon the Western steamboats.”

I’m gwine to Alabamy,--Oh,
For to see my mammy,--Ah.

She went from ole Virginny,--Oh,
And I’m her pickaniny,--Ah.

She lives on the Tombigbee,--Oh,
I wish I had her wid me,--Ah.

Now I’m a good big nigger,--Oh,
I reckon I won’t git bigger,--Ah.

But I’d like to see my mammy,--Oh,
Who lives in Alabamy,--Ah.

Very few of the Negro’s ante-bellum secular songs have been preserved, but there is every reason to suppose that he had numerous melancholy songs aside from the spirituals. At any rate, the earliest authentic secular collections abound in the kind of songs which have come to be known as the blues. The following expressions are typical of the early blues. They are taken from songs collected in Georgia and Mississippi between 1905 and 1908, and they were doubtless common property among the Negroes of the lower class long before that.[6]

[6] This collection was published by Howard W. Odum in the _Journal
of American Folk-Lore_, vol. 24, pp. 255-94; 351-96.

Went to the sea, sea look so wide,
Thought about my babe, hung my head an’ cried.
O my babe, won’t you come home?

I got the blues, but too damn mean to cry,
Oh, I got the blues, but I’m too damn mean to cry.

Got nowhar to lay my weary head,
O my babe, got nowhar to lay my weary head.

I’m po’ boy long way from home,
Oh, I’m po’ boy long way from home.

Ever since I left dat country farm,
Ev’ybody been down on me.

Here are blues in the making. This is the stuff that the first published blues were made of, and some of it sounds strikingly like certain of the latest blues records issued by the phonograph companies. About 1910 the first published blues appeared, and since that time they have been exploited in every imaginable form by music publishers and phonograph companies.[7] The inter-relations between the formal blues and the native blues will be discussed later. At present it is necessary to take up certain questions concerning the nature of the blues.

[7] W. C. Handy is credited with having published the first blues
(_Memphis Blues_, 1910) and with having had much to do with their
popularization. He is still writing songs. His works include _Memphis
Blues_, _St. Louis Blues_, _Beale St. Blues_, _Joe Turner Blues_,
_Yellow Dog Blues_, _Aunt Hagar’s Blues_, and others.

What are the characteristics of the native blues, in so far as they can be spoken of as a type of song apart from other Negro songs? The original blues were so fragmentary and elusive--they were really little more than states of mind expressed in song--that it is difficult to characterize them definitely. The following points, then, are merely suggestive.

In the first place, blues are characterized by a tone of plaintiveness. Both words and music give the impression of loneliness and melancholy. In fact, it was this quality, combined with the Negro’s peculiar use of the word “blues,” which gave the songs their name. In the second place, the theme of most blues is that of the love relation between man and woman. There are many blues built around homesickness and hard luck in general, but the love theme is the principal one. Sometimes the dominant note is the complaint of the lover:

Goin’ ’way to leave you, ain’t comin’ back no mo’,
You treated me so dirty, ain’t comin’ back no mo’.[8]

Where was you las’ Sattaday night,
When I lay sick in bed?
You down town wid some other ol’ girl,
Wusn’t here to hol’ my head.[9]

Sometimes it is a note of longing:

I hate to hear my honey call my name,
Call me so lonesome and so sad.[10]

I believe my woman’s on that train,
O babe, I believe my woman’s on that train.[11]

At other times the dominant note is one of disappointment:

I thought I had a friend was true;
Done found out friends won’t do.[12]

All I hope in this bright worl’,
If I love anybody, don’t let it be a girl.[13]

[8] _The Negro and His Songs_, p. 184.

[9] _Ibid._, p. 185.

[10] _Ibid._, p. 224.

[11] _Ibid._, p. 222.

[12] _Ibid._, p. 250.

[13] _Ibid._, p. 181.

A third characteristic of the blues is the expression of self pity.[14] Often this is the outstanding feature of the song. There seems to be a tendency for the despondent or blue singer to use the technique of the martyr to draw from others a reaction of sympathy. Psychologically speaking, the technique consists of rationalization, by which process the singer not only excuses his shortcomings, but attracts the attention and sympathy of others--in imagination, at least--to his hard lot. The following expressions will make the point clear.[15]

[14] For a discussion of this subject, see Lomax, “Self-pity in Negro
Folk Song,” _Nation_, vol. 105, pp. 141-45.

[15] Illustrations are taken from _The Negro and His Songs_ unless
otherwise indicated.

Bad luck in de family, sho’ God, fell on me,
Good ol’ boy, jus’ ain’t treated right.

Poor ol’ boy, long ways from home,
I’m out in dis wide worl’ alone.

Out in dis wide worl’ to roam,
Ain’t got no place to call my home.

Now my mama’s dead and my sweet ol’ popper too,
An’ I ain’t got no one fer to carry my troubles to.

If I wus to die, little girl, so far away from home,
The folks, honey, for miles around would mourn.

Now it is apparent to any one familiar with the folk songs of various peoples that the blues type, as it has been described above, is not peculiar to the Negro, but is more or less common to all races and peoples. So far as subject matter and emotional expression are concerned, the lonesome songs of the Kentucky mountaineer, of the cowboy, of the sailor, or of any other group, are representative of the blues type. If this be so, then why was it that the Negro’s song alone became the basis for a nationally popular type of song? The answer to this question is, of course, far from simple. For one thing, the whole matter of the Negro’s cultural position in relation to the white man is involved. The Negro’s reputation for humor and good singing is also important. Perhaps, too, the psychology of fads would have to be considered. But, speaking in terms of the qualities of the songs themselves, what is there about them to account for the superior status enjoyed by the Negro’s melancholy songs?

To begin with, the Negro’s peculiar use of the word “blues” in his songs was a circumstance of no mean importance. Much more significant, however, was the music of the blues. The blues originated, of course, with Negroes who had access to few instruments other than the banjo and the guitar. But such music as they brought forth from these instruments to accompany their blues was suited to the indigo mood. It was syncopated, it was full of bizarre harmonies, sudden changes of key and plaintive slurs. It was something new to white America, and it needed only an introduction to insure its success.

But there is still another feature of the blues which is probably responsible more than any other one thing for their appeal and fascination, and that is their lack of conventionality, their naïveté of expression. The Negro wastes no time in roundabout or stilted modes of speech. His tale is brief, his metaphor striking, his imagery perfect, his humor plaintive. Expressions like the following have made the blues famous.

Looked down the road jus’ far as I could see,
Well, the band did play “Nearer, My God to Thee.”

Well, I started to leave an’ I got ’way down the track;
Got to thinkin’ ’bout my woman, come a-runnin’ back.

Wish to God some ol’ train would run,
Carry me back where I came frum.

I laid in jail, back to the wall:
Brown skin gal cause of it all.[16]

[16] See Perrow, “Songs and Rhymes from the South,” _Journal of
American Folk-Lore_, vol. 28, p. 190.

When the first published blues appeared, the problem for the student of Negro song began to become complicated. It is no longer possible to speak with certainty of the folk blues, so entangled are the relations between them and the formal compositions. This inter-relation is itself of such interest and importance that it demands the careful attention of students of folk song. Only a few points can be touched upon in the present work, but an attempt will be made at least to indicate some of the ramifications of the subject.

There is no doubt that the first songs appearing in print under the name of blues were based directly upon actual songs already current among Negroes.[17] Soon after Handy began to issue his blues, white people as well as Negroes were singing them heartily. But a song was never sung long in its original version alone. The half-dozen stanzas of the original often grew to a hundred or more, for many singers took pride in creating new stanzas or adapting parts of other songs to the new one. Sometimes publishers would issue second and third editions, incorporating in them the best of the stanzas which had sprung up since the preceding edition. Thus, even before the phonograph became the popular instrument that it is today, the interplay between folk creations and formal compositions had become extremely complex.

[17] See James Weldon Johnson, _The Book of American Negro Poetry_,
pp. x-xiv; and Dorothy Scarborough, _On the Trail of Negro
Folk-Songs_, pp. 269-70.

In the last ten years the phonograph record has surpassed sheet music as a conveyor of blues to the public. Sheet music, however, is still important. In fact, practically every “hit” is issued in both the published and phonographed form. But the phonograph record obviously has certain advantages, and it is largely responsible for the present popularity of the blues. Most of the large phonograph companies now maintain special departments devoted to the recording of “race blues.” They employ Negro artists, many of whom have already earned national reputations, and they advertise extensively, especially in the Negro press.

In spite of the extremes to which exploitation of the blues has gone in recent years, there is often an authentic folk element to be found in the present-day formal productions. Some of the phonograph artists are encouraged by their employers to sing blues of their own making. When the artist has had an intimate acquaintance with the life of his race and has grown up among the blues, so to speak, he is often able to produce a song which preserves faithfully the spirit of the folk blues. The folk productions of yesterday are likely to be found, albeit sometimes in versions scarcely recognizable, on the phonograph records of today. That this is the case is indicated by the following comparison of a few of the lines and titles of songs collected twenty years ago with lines and titles of recent popular blues songs.

LINES AND TITLES OF SONGS LINES AND TITLES OF RECENT
COLLECTED TWENTY YEARS POPULAR BLUES
AGO[18]

_Laid in jail, back to the wall._ _Thirty days in jail with my back
turned to the wall._

_Jailer, won’t you put ’nother man _Look here, mister jailer, put
in my stall?_ another gal in my stall._

_Baby, won’t you please come _Baby, won’t you please come
home?_ home?_

_Wonder where my baby stay las’ _Where did you stay last night?_
night?_

_I got my all-night trick, baby, _I’m busy and you can’t come in._
and you can’t git in._

_I’ll see her when her trouble’s _I’m gonna see you when your
like mine._ troubles are just like mine._

_Satisfied._ _I’m satisfied._

_You may go, but this will bring _I got what it takes to bring you
you back._ back._

_Joe Turner_ _Joe Turner blues._

_Love, Kelly’s love._ _Love, careless love._

_I’m on my las’ go-’round._ _Last go-’round blues._

[18] See _Journal of American Folk-Lore_, vol. 24; also _The Negro
and His Songs_.

When a blues record is issued it quickly becomes the property of a million Negro workers and adventurers who never bought it and perhaps never heard it played. Sometimes they do not even know that the song is from a record. They may recognize in it parts of songs long familiar to them and think that it is just another piece which some songster has put together. Their desire to invent a different version, their skill at adapting stanzas of old favorites to the new music, and sometimes their misunderstanding of the words of the new song, result in the transformation of the song into many local variants. In other words, the folk creative process operates upon a song, the origin of which may already be mixed, and produces in turn variations that may later become the bases of other formal blues. A thorough exposition of this process would take us far beyond the limits of this volume, but the following instances are cited to illustrate generally the interplay between the folk blues and the formal blues.

Here is a specimen captured from a Negro girl in Georgia who had just returned from a trip to “Troit,” Michigan.

When you see me comin’
Throw yo’ woman out de do’,
For you know I’s no stranger,
For I’s been dere once befo’.

He wrote me a letter,
Nothin’ in it but a note.
I set down an’ writ him,
“I ain’t no billy goat.”

Standin’ on de platform,
Worried in both heart an’ soul;
An’ befo’ I’d take yo’ man
I’d eat grass like a Georgia mule.

I love my man
Lak I love myse’f.
If he don’t have me
He won’t have nobody else.

Now this song is a mixture of several popular blues. The first stanza is from the _House Rent Blues_, and is sung practically the same as on the phonograph record. The second stanza is from the _Salt Water Blues_ and is like the original except for the repetition in the original of the first two lines. The third stanza is also from the _Salt Water Blues_, but it is a combination and variation of two stanzas which go as follows:

Sittin’ on the curbstone,
Worried in both heart an’ soul;
Lower than a ’possum
Hidin’ in a ground-hog hole.

I wrote my man,
“I ain’t nobody’s fool;
An’ befo’ I’d stand your talkin’
I’d eat grass like a Georgia mule.”

This girl does not worry over the lack of consistent meaning in the third stanza of her song. Furthermore, as far as she is concerned, “soul” and “mule” rhyme about as well as “fool” and “mule.” The fourth stanza of her song, finally, is taken from _Any Woman’s Blues_, there having been, however, a slight variation in the second line. The original is:

I love my man
Better than I love myself;
An’ if he don’t have me,
He won’t have nobody else.

Thus in a single song we have examples of the processes of borrowing, combining, changing, and misunderstanding through which formal material often goes when it gets into the hands of the common folk. The composite of four stanzas presented above has no very clear meaning in its present form, but at that it is about as coherent as any of the blues from which it was assembled.

Left Wing Gordon, whose story is told in Chapter XII, is a good study in the relation of folk song and formal blues. Left Wing’s repertoire is practically unlimited, for he appears to have remembered everything that he has ever heard. One of his favorite expressions is

You don’t know my mind,
You don’t know my mind;
When you see my laughin’,
I’m laughin’ to keep from cryin’.

This comes from _You Don’t Know My Mind Blues_, a popular sheet music and phonograph piece today. Left Wing sings dozens of stanzas, some evidently from the published versions, some of his own making, ending each one with “You don’t know my mind,” etc. Nearly all of his songs showed this sort of mixture of formal and folk material.

As an example of the misunderstanding, deliberate twisting of the words of a phonograph blues, or lapse of memory, the following instance may be cited. In the _Chain Gang Blues_ this stanza occurs.

Judge he gave me six months
’Cause I wouldn’t go to work.
From sunrise to sunset
I ain’t got no time to shirk.

A Southern Negro on a chain gang recently sang it thus:

Judge he give me sentence
’Cause I wouldn’t go to work.
From sunrise to sunset
I don’t have no other clean shirt.

Examples of this kind might be multiplied indefinitely, but these will suffice. In the notes on the songs in the various chapters of this book will be found comments bearing upon the relation of formal blues and folk songs.

Thus it is clear that in many cases there is a complex inter-relation and interaction between the folk song and the formal production. But the tendency has been on the whole for the latter to get further and further away from folk sources. Few authors now attempt to do more than imitate certain features of the old-time blues. In order to understand more clearly the present situation, it is necessary to consider for a moment the blues as they are manufactured today.

There are at least three large phonograph companies which give special attention to Negro songs. They will be designated herein as “A,” “B,” and “C.” The following table, compiled from data obtained from the general “race record” catalogs of these three companies, gives an idea of the importance of the blues.

+--------+------------+-------------+-----------+--------------------+
|Brand of|Total No. of|No. Religious|No. Secular| Titles Containing |
| Record | Titles in |and Classical| Titles | Word “Blues” |
| | Catalog | Titles | | |
+--------+------------+-------------+-----------+------+-------------+
| | | | | | Percentage |
| | | | |Number| of |
| | | | | |Secular Songs|
| | | | +------+-------------+
| “A” | 592 | 34[19] | 558 | 263 | 43 |
| “B” | 430 | 90[20] | 340 | 154 | 40 |
| “C” | 298 | 44[19] | 254 | 108 | 42 |
+--------+------------+-------------+-----------+------+-------------+

[19] No classical titles listed.

[20] Includes 28 classical titles.

In this table only those titles including the word “blues” have been counted as blues. If the term were expanded to include all songs which are now popularly known as blues, it would be found that upwards of seventy-five per cent of the total number of secular songs listed in the catalogs would fall in this class. The “A” catalog bears the title, _“A” Race Records--The Blue Book of Blues_; the “B” catalog follows titles like _Oh, Daddy_, _Brown Baby_, _Long Lost Mama_, etc., with the explanation, “blues song” or “blues record”; and the “C” catalog bears the title, _“C” Race Records--The Latest Blues by “C” Colored Artists_. Certainly the popular notion among both whites and Negroes now is that practically every Negro song which is not classed as a spiritual is a blues. The term is now freely applied to instrumental pieces, especially to dance music of the jazz type, and to every vocal piece which, by any stretch of the imagination, can be thought of as having a bluish cast.

A survey of the titles in the three catalogs mentioned above yields some interesting data concerning the nature of the formal blues. For one thing, there are sixty or seventy titles of the place or locality type. Southern states and cities figure prominently in this kind of blues, although the popularity of Northern localities is on the increase. The favorite states are Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas, and Virginia. The chief titles for these states are as follows:

ALABAMA

_Alabama Blues_
_Birmingham Blues_
_Mobile Blues_
_Selma Bama Blues_
_Bama Bound Blues_

GEORGIA

_Atlanta Blues_
_Decatur Blues_
_Georgia Hunch_
_Georgia Blues_

LOUISIANA

_Lake Pontchartrain Blues_
_Lou’siana Low-down Blues_
_New Orleans Hop Scop Blues_
_New Orleans Wiggle_
_Shreveport Blues_

MISSISSIPPI

_Mississippi Blues_
_Ole Miss Blues_
_Mississippi Delta Blues_

TEXAS

_Dallas Blues_
_Houston Blues_
_Red River Blues_
_Waco Texas Blues_
_Seawall Special Blues_

VIRGINIA

_Virginia Blues_
_Hampton Roads Blues_
_Norfolk Blues_

There are also, to name only a few others, _Arkansas Blues_, _Florida Blues_, _California Blues_, _Carolina Blues_, _Omaha Blues_, _Michigan Water Blues_, _Memphis Blues_, _Tulsa Blues_, _St. Louis Blues_, _Salt Lake City Blues_, _Wabash Blues_, and _Blue Grass Blues_. Finally there are foreign titles, such as _London Blues_ and _West Indies Blues_. Titles, of course, are not to be taken as accurate indices of the contents of the songs. As a matter of fact, most of the songs bearing titles of the locality type really deal with the relation of man and woman.

Another feature of the formal blues is their tendency to specialize in certain slang expressions. “Sweet mama,” “sweet papa,” “daddy,” “jelly roll,” and a few other expressions have been thoroughly popularized among certain classes, white and Negro, by the blues songs. By actual count, titles containing one or more of the words, “mama,” “daddy,” “papa,” “baby,” constitute twenty-five per cent of the total number of secular titles in the catalogs referred to above.

It is to be expected that a very large proportion of these present-day blues (using the term now in the broad sense as it is popularly used) deals with the relation of man and woman. In fact, if the locality types, most of which are based on the love relation, and the “mama-papa” type were eliminated from the count, there would be a mere handful left. The following titles will give some impression of the nature of the songs which deal with the man-woman relation.[21]

[21] Any one who is acquainted with the slang and vulgarity of the
lower class Negro will suspect immediately that there are often
double meanings in titles like those listed here. Such is the case.
Negro songs writers and phonograph artists usually have had intimate
acquaintance with Negro life in all of its forms, and they have
doubtless come across many a song which was too vulgar to be put into
print, but which had certain appealing qualities. Often a melody was
too striking to be allowed to escape, so the writer fitted legitimate
verses to it and, if it was at all possible, preserved the original
title. Thus it comes about that many of the popular Negro songs
of today--and white songs, too, as for that--have titles that are
extremely suggestive, and are saved only by their perfectly innocuous
verses. The suggestiveness of the titles may also be one explanation
of why these songs have such a tremendous appeal for the common folk,
black and white. It may be that in these songs, whitewashed and
masked though they be, they recognize old friends.

_Leave My Sweet Papa Alone_

_I’ve Got a Do-right Daddy Now_

_Mistreated Mama_

_Slow Down, Sweet Papa, Mama’s Catching up With You_

_Sweet Smellin’ Mama_

_Black but Sweet, O God_

_How Do You Expect to Get My Lovin’?_

_He May Be Your Man, but He Comes to See Me Sometimes_

_Changeable Daddy_

_Go Back Where You Stayed Last Night_

_How Can I Be Your Sweet “Mama” When You’re “Daddy” to Some One Else?_

_You Can Have My Man if He Comes to See You Too_

_That Free and Easy Papa of Mine_

_You Can’t Do What My Last Man Did_

_Mistreatin’ Daddy_

_If I Let You Get Away With It Once You’ll Do It All the Time_

_Daddy, You’ve Done Put That Thing on Me_

_I’m Tired of Begging You to Treat Me Right_

_My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll_

_Do It a Long Time, Papa_

_No Second Handed Lovin’ for Mine_

_I Want a Jazzy Kiss_

_I’m Gonna Tear Your Playhouse Down_

_Beale Street Mama_

_Big Fat Mama_

_Lonesome Mama_

_You’ve Got Everything a Sweet Mama Needs but Me_

_If You Don’t Give Me What I Want I’m Gonna Get It Somewhere Else_

_Mama Don’t Want Sweet Man Any More_

_If You Sheik on Your Mama_

_Mean Papa, Turn in Your Key_

_Take It, Daddy, It’s All Yours_

_How Long, Sweet Daddy, How Long?_

_You Can Take My Man but You Can’t Keep Him Long_

_Can Anybody Take Sweet Mama’s Place?_

_You Don’t Know My Mind_

_Baby, Won’t You Please Come Home?_

Then there are innumerable miscellaneous titles and sentiments. One may have the _Poor Man Blues_, _Red Hot Blues_, _Through Train Blues_, _Railroad Blues_, _Crazy Blues_, _Stranger Blues_, _Don’t Care Blues_, _Goin’ ’Way Blues_, _Bleedin’ Hearted Blues_, _Cryin’ Blues_, _Salt Water Blues_, _Mountain Top Blues_, _Thunderstorm Blues_, _Sinful Blues_, _Basement Blues_, _House Rent Blues_, _Reckless Blues_, and even the _A to Z Blues_. Here again however, titles are misleading, for practically all songs bearing such titles really deal with the man-woman theme.

It may be worth mentioning that the majority of these formal blues are sung from the point of view of woman. A survey of titles in the “A,” “B,” and “C” catalogs shows that upwards of seventy-five per cent of the songs are written from the woman’s point of view. Among the blues singers who have gained a more or less national recognition there is scarcely a man’s name to be found.

It is doubtful whether the history of song affords a parallel to the American situation with regard to the blues. Here we have the phenomenon of a type of folk song becoming a great fad and being exploited in every conceivable form; of hundreds of blues, some of which are based directly upon folk productions, being distributed literally by the million among the American people; and the Negro’s assimilation of these blues into his everyday song life. What the effects of these processes are going to be, one can only surmise. One thing is certain, however, and that is that the student of Negro song tomorrow will have to know what was on the phonograph records of today before he may dare to speak of origins.

Whether the formal blues have come to stay or not, it is impossible to tell at present. Possibly they will undergo considerable modification as the public becomes satiated and the Negro takes on more and more of the refinements of civilization. That their present form, however, is acceptable to a large section of Negro America is indicated by the fact that the combined sales of “A,” “B,” and “C” blues records alone amount to five or six millions annually.

The folk blues will also undergo modification, but they will always reflect Negro life in its lower strata much more accurately than the formal blues can. For it must be remembered that these folk blues were the Negro’s melancholy song long before the phonograph was invented. Yet the formal songs are important. In their own way they are vastly superior to the cruder folk productions, since they have all of the advantages of the artificial over the natural. They may replace some of the simpler songs and thus dull the creative impulse of the common Negro folk to some extent, but there is every reason to suppose that there will be real folk blues as long as there are Negro toilers and adventurers whose naïveté has not been worn off by what the white man calls culture.

The plaintiveness of the blues will be encountered in most of the songs of this volume. It is present because most of the songs were collected from the class of Negro folk who are most likely to create blues. In the next chapter certain general songs of the blues type have been brought together but the note of lonesomeness and melancholy will be struck in the songs of the other chapters as well, especially in those dealing with jail and chain gang, construction camp, and the relation of man and woman.