Week 12

Howlin' Wolf - How Many More Years

"What is the blues? When you ain't got no money, you got the blues. When you ain't got no money to pay your house with, you still got the blues... If you ain't got no money you got the blues, cause you thinkin' evil. Every time you thinkin' evil you got the blues."

Lyrics:

How many more years?
Have I got to let you dog me around
How many more years?
Oh, I got to let you dog me around
I'd soon rather be dead
Sleeping six feet in the ground

I'm gonna fall on my knees
I'm gonna raise up my right hand
I'm gonna fall on my knees
I'm gonna raise up my right hand
Say, I'd feel much better, darlin'
If you'd just only understand

I'm goin' upstairs
I'm gonna bring back down my clothes
I'm goin' upstairs
I'm gonna bring back down my clothes, do them all
If anybody ask about me
Just tell 'em I walked out on


Since we are exploring the blues this week, I wanted to explore the color. 

Week 11

I'm not sure I found the reading this week particular inspiring in relation to the readings of the past couple of weeks -- it was a lot of specific daily life and human interaction description. I think I much preferred learning about the musicians themselves (I.e.: Leadbelly's biography and history were interesting and learned a lot of background on how he was received and how he carried himself in the musical world. 

However, the reading, personally, was not something I think that furthers the context of the blues music -- a lot of words just to say that the blues music is the musical expression of feeling, of hard times, and the community created a sense of family within the blues world. 

What did catch my attention was the hospitality of the black families. They welcomed Ferris with kindness, a place to stay, people to talk to. He was unofficially inducted into the blues family, regardless of race. That touched me, especially in the time we live in now, where everyone pretty much keeps to themselves until they need something from someone else. But this community actively welcomed strangers into the lives.

I thought it was slightly amusing how the blacks were confused about the record player and refused to speak when the music was playing, in fear of the white people listening into their conversations.

I thought Careless Love was interesting because it shares some of the same lyrics as Goodnight Irene. "You cause me to weep, you cause me to mourn." It's a very sad song, talking about loving until one loses his mind, death, digging one's grave.

For this week, I chose Sweet Home Chicago. However, I tried to put it in today's context.

Week 10: Woody Guthrie

I really admire Woody Guthrie's take on his music, and I believe there should be more people like him especially in the current music industry. A lot of songs nowadays focus on being thin, being perfect, being up to society's standards in appearance and materialism. These qualities are often impossible for the regular person. Songs often ask for girls to be looser, to not be a prude -- but if they're too slutty, that's also bad. Songs often asks guys to be this one dimensional masculine figure, getting all the girls and being fit. These are not realistic. These are not the things that are important in creating a healthy outlook on life. This over saturation of what we're supposed to be overpowers what we are actually like, which is why I really appreciate how Woody Guthrie words his sentiments:

"I hate a song that makes you think that you're not any good. I hate a song that makes you think you are just born to lose. No good to nobody. No good for nothing. Because you are either too old or too young or too fat or too slim or too ugly or too this or too that. Songs that run you down r songs that poke fun at you on account of your bad luck or hard traveling."

"I am out to sing songs that will prove to you that this is your world...I am out to sing the songs that make you take pride in yourself and in your work."

"Woody, being an excellent journalist, described not a world as it might be but as it was." Woody was more of a realist than a dreamer, and I think that is part of his charm. His music and lyrics show people that it's totally fine for them to be struggling, to be living this truthful life. He does not put people down for what they're going through and he doesn't idealize a certain type of person. Everyone is equal and should have the opportunity to blossom in their own right.

For this week I chose Guthrie's This Land is Your Land. It was a song I grew up singing in elementary school, and I really liked the simple tune of the song. Since it was such an important song in my primary school days, I wanted to convey that simple, childlike sense into the artwork. I also wanted to show a sense of constancy/universality -- how although the buildings and areas of the world have their own quality, their own shape, they are all represented with the same thin black line. Through all the differences, we are all inherently of the same strokes, just in a different order.