Friday, December 29, 2006

Everything You Need to Know About the Blues...

A friend posted this on her blog, and I've got to pass it along. Thanks, Barbara!

How to Sing the Blues


If you are new to Blues music, or like it but never really understood the why and wherefores, here are some very fundamental rules:

1. Most Blues begin with: "Woke up this morning..."

2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line like, "I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town."

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes - sort of:
"Got a good woman with the meanest face in town.
Yes, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town.
Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and she weigh 500 pound."

4. The Blues is not about choice.
You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch...ain't no way out.

5. Blues cars:
Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks.
Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles.
Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train.
Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain't even in the running.
Walkin' plays a major part in the Blues lifestyle.
So does fixin' to die.

6. Teenagers can't sing the Blues.
They ain't fixin' to die yet.
Adults sing the Blues.
In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or anywhere in Canada.
Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is just clinical depression.
Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, and Nawlins are still the best places to have the Blues.
You cannot have the Blues in any place that don't get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain't the Blues.
A woman with male pattern baldness is.
Breaking your leg 'cause you were skiing is not the Blues.
Breaking your leg 'cause a alligator be chomping on it is.

9. You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall.
The lighting is wrong.
Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

11. Bad places for the Blues
a. Nordstrom's
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

12. No one will believe it's the Blues if you wear a suit, 'less you happen to be an old person, and you slept in it.

13.Do you have the right to sing the Blues?
Yes, if:
a. you're older than dirt
b. you're blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can't be satisfied

No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a 401K or trust fund

14. Blues is not a matter of color. It's a matter of bad luck.
Tiger Woods cannot sing the Blues. Sonny Liston could have.
Ugly white people also got a leg up on the Blues.

15. If you ask for water and your darlin' gives you gasoline, it's the Blues.
Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Chardonnay
c. Snapple
d. Slim Fast

16. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death.
Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die.
So are the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken-down cot.
You can't have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

17. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

18. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

19. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Jennifer, Debbie, and Heather can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

20. Blues Name Starter Kit
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)

For example: Blind Lime Jefferson, Pegleg Lemon Johnson or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not "Kiwi.")

21. And I don't care how tragic your life is, if anyone in your family plays soccer, you can't sing the blues.

Four-Eyes Banana Bessie Wilson signing off...

3 comments:

revhipchick said...

awesome!

my hubby doesn't seem to get this one!
"A man with male pattern baldness ain't the Blues.
A woman with male pattern baldness is."

i wish he would!

Reverend Dona Quixote said...

Woke up dis mo'nin'
with a pain in mah haid
I WOKE up dis mo'nin'
with a pain in mah haid,
got so much to clean up
I wish I wuz daid

cuz I got them
POST party blues
yeah I got them
POST party blues
There's just too much food
an' I dunno what to do

---Crippled Kiwi Clinton

Blues pseudonym for Rev Dona Quixote, yet another pseudonym ...
heh heh. This wuz fun, RP.

The Vicar of Hogsmeade said...

I heard that the pianist at a church played "New York City Blues" by Billy Joel the Sunday after Sept 11. sometimes the blues are the only way to say it

Clarence Darrow--Beyond Scopes and Leopold & Loeb

Personalities fascinate me--people do. One way I try to understand history and places is through people--which is why I love good histor...