Rules Of The Blues
I’ve been saving this up for a day just like today: Saturday of the Labor Day holiday weekend in a presidential election year. OK, I lied about the last part, but you’ll see; it fits.
Time to laugh now because with all the upcoming campaigning between court dates these are going to be times that try a man’s – or a woman’s – soul.
[Hat tip to Juanita Jean who knows a good blues tune or two].
Rules of the Blues
1. Most Blues begin, “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 company 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 any place in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City 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 is chompin’ on it is.
9. You can’t have no Blues in a 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. An 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 a old ethnic person, and you slept in it.
13. You have the right to sing the Blues if:
a. You older than dirt
b. You blind
c. You shot a man in Memphis
d. You can’t be satisfied
14. You don’t have the right to sing the Blues 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 pension fund
15. Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Sonny Liston could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.
16. If you ask for water and your darlin’ give you gasoline, it’s the Blues
17. Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. Cheap wine
b. Whiskey or bourbon
c. Muddy water
d. Nasty black coffee
18. The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Chardonnay
c. Snapple
d. Slim Fast
19. 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 is the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broke-down cot. You can’t have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.
20. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling
21. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie
22. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Debbie, and Heather can’t sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.
23. Make your own Blues name Starter Kit: a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.) b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Melon, Kiwi, etc.) c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.) For example: Blind Lime Jefferson, Jackleg Lemon Johnson or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not “Kiwi.”)
24. I don’t care how tragic your life: if you own even one computer, you cannot sing the blues.
Or….if you are the fabulous John Lee Hooker, you can sing the Blues whenever and wherever and however you damn well please.
Oh, I dunno. I live in a rent-controlled high-rise apartment in the middle of DC and I’m doing laundry at the moment. Another Saturday Night in the Big City. I have a right to sing the blues.
1This is genius. I’m working on a song sung by Little Willie Orange gettin’ beat by a Good Woman,…she got a bad laugh.
2I love every word of that post! It struck straight at my Southern roots. I really don’t have a right to sing the blues, but I support BarbinDC in hers.
My favorite parody beginning of a blues song starts
“My girlfriend left me
The same day my dog died. . .”
John Lee Hooker for the win!
3I absolutely LOVE that post!!!
Also, can you please make similar one about country music?
4As much as I understand, most (male) country singers are always one nasty break-up and one dead dog away from taking their own life…
Excellent AND educational. I would note that John Hiatt has eloquently brought these maxims to life in many songs. Blues comes in all colors.
5I woke up this morning, saw both cars were gone . . .
Martin Mull, Middle Class Blues:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hHGjzu41cLA
6@ 4. That rules For Blues has been floating around a long time. IIRC, Rolling Stones tried a version for country years ago, too. It was not nearly as funny.
My grands were laughing their butts off when I sent it to them. They also love old time Kinky Friedman like They Ain’t Making Jews Like Jesus, Anymore. We’d all be arrested these days.
7SiriusXM has a Blues channel around channel number 70 something, right between the 40s-50s-60s oldies and the Elvis Presley channel.
When I’m not locked on the Spa channel, 68, I mostly switch among those channels.
8SiriusXM = satellite radio channels service.
9Great post! Lots to take in.
10My favorite kind of blues are what you find with street entertainers.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNAXtLYMSMA
I dunno about the ‘if you own even one computer, you can’t sing the blues’.
Like fractional-horsepower electric motors, computers are pretty d*mn hard to avoid these days: key fobs, microwave ovens, dryers, washing machines, cars, cellphones, TVs, radios/stereos, a large fraction of guitar effects boxes, (musical) keyboards, cable boxes, credit cards, … have internal computers.
I will concede that ‘computers are a bad idea’, but too many people seem to disagree.
11THANKS!
12What? No one from Canada? I beg to differ eh. I submit to you…Dutch Mason. One of the greatest blues musicians from Canada. (Lunenburg, Nova Scotia)
13Steve @ 10
The most authentic blues I ever heard was sitting on a bench outside the Norfolk Public Library and listening to a prisoner in the jail on the fourth floor of the building across the street.
14I thought Michelle Bachmann (Christian-MN) sang the blues when she lost the Presidential Primary to Mitt Romney (Christian [?] – UT).
15