SONGWRITERS’ CORNER: Complete Guide to [Writing] The Blues

If you’re new to Blues music, or you like it but never really understood the whys and wherefores / ins & outs, here are some very basic rules:

1.  Many Blues begin with:  “Woke up this mornin’…”

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 basically simple.  After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then, find something that rhymes — kinda 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.  Suitable  Blues cars:  Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs, and broke-down pick-up trucks. Blues don’t never  travel in Volvos, BMWs, or SUV’s. 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, Alaska,  or anywhere in Canada.  Hard times in Minneapolis, Des Moines, or Seattle are probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, Kansas City, Memphis, and N’awlins 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  or on account of yo’ honey’s husband ran you down with his motor-sickle is.

9.  You can’t have no Blues in a office or  shopping mall. Lighting is all wrong. Go outside to the parking lot and  set down by the dumpster, or (better) lay down in the gutter.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a.  highway or dirt road
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 a old person, and you slept in it for the past several weeks.

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 401 K 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 or kerosene, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages:
a.  cheap wine,
b. moonshine, whiskey, or Sterno squeezin’s
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, portable toilet, 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. Jennie.

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, or Julius, Cuthbert, Bruce, Marshall, etc. 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 or vegetable (Lemon,Peach, Potato,Turnip,etc.),
c. last name of a President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.).

For example:  Blind Lemon Jefferson, Pegleg Turnip Johnson, or Cripple Peach Fillmore, etc.

21. Don’t matter how tragic your life may be; if you own a computer, ain’t no way you can sing the blues.

Period..

The Whys and Wherefores of the Blues (from ‘Strange Cosmos’, vol. 1443)