Blue Blues

Graeme Nesbitt

Blues is the most poetic of forms of music. This is because of the metrical foundations which underlie each form. Furthermore, the blues is most vividly poetic in its colourful and elaborate sexual imagery.

The imagery, like the musical form itself, is seldom subtle or condescending-it is explicit, brash, exuberant, and honest. Not like the patronizing reticence and the dare-I-say taciturnity of British ballads, nor the leering innuedo and double entendre of the American popular song, there is in the blues an open and unabashed acceptance of the pleasure of sexual love. This frankness is a reflection on the attitude of the Negro race at the time when white oppression forced the natural pleasures to supercede contrived frivalties

Although many verses have directness and clarity of meaning they still contain imaginative and exuberant use of language.

Woa-oh, black snake crawling in my room

Wo-oh. black snake crawling in my room

Yeah, some pretty mama better get this black snake soon.

Many expressions in popular speech have originated from Negro blues. They usually lose their suggestive or sexual connotation in the transition from the Negro vernacular to the white vocabulary. This is probably because the Negroes weren't inclined to explain the true meaning to others, especially whiles. Many phrases were thus picked up by the whites, who always looked to the Negro for the "hipness" or "coolness" in language. For example, in the 1930's the expression "in the groove" or "groovin" with obvious reference to a man's delight as he joins a woman, i.e. as he "gets in the (physical) groove ". The term became a while man's musical term which is defined in Websters as "playing swing music in exalted mood." More recently "rock and roll" has become common usage. The term refers to the motions of the sexual embrace. Tampa Red uses a phrase in an early blues:

My daddy rocks me with one steady roll.

However the blues have little of this reticence. Exultant eroticism is patently obvious in many titles of blues recordings. Titles like "Warm it up to Me" (Blind Willie McTell), "Do it Slowly". "I'm Wild about that Thing (Bessie Smith), "Slow Driving". "My Banana in your Fruit Basket", all refer to intercourse. Ida Cox refers to intercourse as "diggin' potatoes":

If he didn't like my potatoes, why did he dig so deep?

If he didn't like my potatoes, why did he dig so deep?

In his mama's potato patch five and ten times a week.

The masculine erection is referred to in "Ram-roddin' Daddy." "Hard Pushin' Daddy", and in McTell's phrase:

Papa's rod is hot, mama gonna get it cold.

Women sang about "blacksnakes", "sweet potatoes", and "lemons". Men sang about 'jelly roll", "sweet honey hole" and their "easy riders". One of the most popular phrases is "tight like that".

It's tight like that (beedle-um-bom)

It's tight like that (beedle-um-bom)

Hear me talkin' to you, mama, cause, it's tight like that.

The verses of this particular blues are quite explicit, typical of the Negro subtlety. Some verses express the sexual frustrations of the couple:

Uncle Bill came home

'bout half past ten

Put the key in the lock

But he couldn't get in

whilst others reflect the joyous union:

My woman sure knows how to bake sweet jelly roll

My woman sure knows how to hake sweet jelly roll

She bakes so much it always make me full.

"Jelly", "Jelly Roll", "Easy rider", "Candy" are common sexual terms. Lonnie Johnson sang:

She said Mr. Jelly Roll Baker, let me be your slave

When Gabriel blow his trumpet then I'll rise from my grave

For some of your good jelly roll,

Yes, I love your jelly roll.

It's good for the sick, yes,

And it's good for the old. . . .

She said, Can I put an order in, for two weeks ahead?

I'd rather have your jelly roll than my home cooked bread.

I love your jelly roll,

I love your good, jelly roll.

and in another blues:

You've got to whip it to a jelly,

You've got to stir it in a bowl.

You've got to whip it to a jelly

If you want good jelly roll.

And Blind Lemon Jefferson's "Bakershop Blues". This contains an elaborate mixture of sexual and social implications.

I was standing front of the bakery shop and I was

feeling low down in mind.

I was standing front of the bakery shop and I was

feeling low down in mind.

Feeling hungry as could be, looking at those cakes so fine.

Woman in the bakery shop shouted "Papa, don't

look so sad."

Woman in the bakery shop shouted "Papa, don't

look so sad."

Come and try some of my cake and you won't feel

so bad.

I want to know if your jelly roll's fresh, if

your jelly roll's stale.

Well, I wanna know if your jelly roll's fresh,

if your jelly roll's stale.

I'm goin to haul off and buy me some if I have to break it loose in jail.

Robert Johnsons "Milkcow Calf Blues" is a fine example of extended sexual imagery:

Tell me. milkcow, what on earth is wrong with you,

Um-um, milkcow, what on earth is wrong with you,

Now you have a little milk calf and your milk is turning blue.

Now your calf is hungry, I believe he needs to suck,

And now your calf is hungry, I believe he needs to suck.

But your milk is turning blue, I believe he's out of luck.

I feel like milking

And my milk won't come,

I feel like chewing it.

And my milk won't turn,

I'm crying please, please don't do me wrong.

If you see my milk cow, baby, now. please drive her home.

Little Son Jackson illustrates the rural imagery of "hogs" in hisblues:

There's a groundhog rooting, rooting, in the next door yard.

There's a groundhog rooting.

One-string recorded a blues containing "lemon" imagery:

Well, you squeezed my lemon, baby, and you started my juice to run.

One of the most picturesque similies is found in Robert Johnson's "4 till Late".

A woman is like a dresser

Some man always running thru' it's drawers.

Many of the erotic blues were born in the brothels around the cities. Many female blues singers started singing in pleasure-houses. Songs relating to bawdy-houses include Victoria Spivey's "Organ Grinder Blues", Jelly Roll Morton's "Winding Boy" (a winding boy was the brothel "message boy" who ran errands for the girls and customers) and verses such as these:

Leave me by your side track, poppa

Till your main line comes

Leave me by your side track, daddy

Till your main line comes

I can do better switchin'

Than your main line ever done.

and the mournful verse of a 'retired' whore-house girl:

It's a hell of a life, said the Queen of Spain

Three minutes' pleasure and nine months pain

Two weeks rest and you're back at it again

It's a hell of a life, said the Queen of Spain.

A "trick" was a session with a man in the bawdy-house. Some girls would manage twenty tricks a shift, which was often ten hours.

Keep a-knockin' but you can't come in

I hear you knockin' but you can't come in

I got an all-night trick agin

So keep a-knockin' but you can't come in.

Well, keep on a-knockin' but you can't come in

I'm busy grindin' so you can't come in

If you love me you'll come back again

Or come back tomorrow at half past ten.

Humour is often combined with the sexual imagery quite intentionally. Titles like "My Pin in your Cushion" or "I want some of your Pie", and this song:

Take your fingers off it, don't you dare touch it

You know it don't belong to you.

Two old maids, a-lyin' in the sand

Each one wishin' that the other were a man.

I may be little and I may be thin

But I'm an awful good daddy for the shape I'm in.

I've never been to heaven, but I've been told

St. Peter taught the angels how to jelly roll.

One thing in this wide world I'll never understand

Why a bow-legged woman like a knock-kneed man.

Perhaps the most well known, andf most explicit, of all erotic blues is "Candy Man".

He's got a stick of candy nine inches long

Sells it as fast as a hog can chew corn.

You all heard what Sister Jones said

Always takes a candy stick to bed.

His stick of candy don't melt away

Just gets bigger so the ladies say.

The examples given are only a few of the blues containing

The examples given are only a few of the blues containing sexual imagery. Blues referring to sex are only a part of the vast thematic structure. However, the Negro frankness and authenticity makes the blues a streamlined vehicle for the frustrations, joys, and intensity of sexual love.