The Blues: The Devils' Lullabye

Gordon Parks: Chain Gang, Alabama 1956









The Weary Blues:
Langston Hughes

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
 I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
 He did a lazy sway . . .
 He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o' those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
 O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
 Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man's soul.
 O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--
 "Ain't got nobody in all this world,
   Ain't got nobody but ma self.
   I's gwine to quit ma frownin'
   And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more--
 "I got the Weary Blues
   And I can't be satisfied.
   Got the Weary Blues
   And can't be satisfied--
   I ain't happy no mo'
   And I wish that I had died."
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.

The Devils' Lullabye

For a short moment in time as you close your eyes the room is flooded by a sad and constant beat of steel on steel as the pinstripped negros lay down their blues on the tracks. Gordon Parks captures one of the many moments in which men feel the need to sing their heartache, their
blues, in this balck and white mirror into the past. Despite its simplicity this image transmits so much more than we can see at a first glance. When we look deeper and when we listen closely we can hear the mellow chanting of the prisoners. We can almost imagine them singing "Oh Lord one more track and death is gonna find me". The Blues is riddled with a million meanings, different for each person, each period in time and space. Some meanings however remain the same no matter what. Death, misory, pain, sadness, longing, the Devil, loss of faith in God, poverty, women, booze and blue notes. These are just some of the many Blues themes repeated over time. Some of the everlasting feelings that make up the blues can be found in Langston Hughes' poem The Weary Blues. There is a constant reference to the feeling of melancholy and acceptance of death as the only comfort in a life hard to live. Older than salvery itself, the blues seem to have a deep spiritual rythm that keeps on playing for many. One of the great blues masters, Howlin' Wolf, once said that everyone has the blues, everyone can sing the blues, because no matter what we cannot escape it.If you have no money then you have the blues, if your woman left you then you have the blues, no one can hide from this. The devil is often the one behind all this suffering. From the earliest recordings we can retrieve numerous refferences of this biblical figure. From deals with satan in exchange for fame, women and money, to walking hand in hand with the same since he seems to be the only one to lend a helping hand when the blues strikes deep. Sad, mellow, sweet and evil that is the sound of the blues.


http://www.poets.org/poet.php/prmPID/83
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gordon_Parks
Martin Scorsese Presents The Blues - A Musical Journey DVD's (2003)

Miguel Alain Nº 37 909