Show 28 - Weird Lyrics

Show 28 - Weird Lyrics

I thought I'd take a look at a few songs that I don't really understand but that I find very intriguing. Some of these are songs that seem to be from the minstrel tradition and they use lyrics with meanings that are lost to time or at least lost on me. Or maybe the songs were just always weird, even at the time they were made. That might be the case with a song from Jim Jackson. It seems to be a religious parody and might have come from the minstrel stage. Recorded in Memphis in 1928 for Victor Records, “I Heard the Voice of a Porkchop.” The same song was recorded later in the same year by Bogus Ben Covington (who is probably the same man that recorded under the name Ben Curry) accompanied by his banjo and harmonica. It's not clear if Covington learned the song from Jackson or if they picked it up from the same minstrel origin. Clearly, the song is about hunger but the lyrics are undeniably strange and seem to be about eating road kill crossed with a vision.

Jackson's lyrics:

I walked and I walked and I walked and I walked
I stopped to rest my feet
I sat down under an old oak tree and there went fast asleep
I dreamt about sitting in a swim cafe hungry as a bear
My stomach sent a telegram to my throat:
There's a wreck on the road somewhere
I heard the voice of a porkchop say: Come on to me and rest
Well you talk about your stewing me: I ain't know what the best
You talk about your chicken, ham, and eggs and turkey stuffed in dress
But I heard the voice of a pork chop say come on to me and rest

Luke Jordan's “Pick Poor Robin Clean” features music and lyrics, particularly the lyrics with what we now consider racist language reveal the probable minstrel show origin of the song:

Get off my money and don't get funny
'Cause I'm a nigger, don't cut no figure
Gambling for Sadie, she is my lady
I'm a hustling coon that's just what I am

But it's the chorus that features the lyrics that confuse me:

You better pick poor robin clean
Pick poor robin clean
I picked his head, I picked his feet
Would have picked his body, but it wasn't fit to eat
You'd better pick poor robin clean
Pick poor robin clean
But I'll be satisfied having your family

It seems picking the robin is a metaphor, but I'm not sure for what. The song was also recorded by the female duo Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas and it almost seems to take on a different meaning being sing by a woman.

Alabama musician Ed Bell recorded a great song featuring a word that seems to have left the vernacular but that shows up in quite a few blues songs of the era. The word is mamlish. The song is “Mamlish Blues,” recorded for Paramount in 1927.

These are my mamlish blues, gonna tell you just what they mean
Used to be my sugar but you ain't sweet no mamlish more
Because you mistreated me and you throwed me from your door
Mama my pack's ready, keep it for my mamlish self
Mama I done got tired of sleeping by myself
Well my Mama didn't like me, my papa give me mamlish ways
That's the very reason I'm a wandering child today
Talking about your sure love but you just ought to see mamlish mine
She ain't so good looking but she do just fine
She the man on the corner, see she going to steal that mamlish man
And a blind man seen her and a dumb man call her name
And the dumb man asked her who your regular man can be
And the blind man told her you sure look good to me

The word also shows up in another 1927 Paramount recording, “Nappy Head Blues” by Bobby Grant, one of only two songs recorded by Grant:

Your head is nappy : your feet so mamlish long
And you move like a turkey: coming through the mamlish corn

Additional songs featuring the word: Kokomo Arnold's “Milkcow Blues” and Sluefoot Joe's “Tooten' Out Blues.” Some theorize that Sluefoot Joe is the same man as Ed Bell. Those songs reveal little more about the meaning of the word. But it seems to function as an intensifier the same way some would use “Goddamm.” Any additional connotations the word probably had is certainly lost on me.

Words and expressions come and go. Songs are one place they are captured and for language from specific regions and ethnic groups, sometimes songs are the only place they're recorded. The language of pre-war blues is rich with words and expressions that have vanished and ones that are still used. And most importantly, the songs are mamlish good.

Songs:
I Heard the Voice of a Porkchop - Jim Jackson
I Heard the Voice of a Porkchop - Bogus Ben Covington
Pick Poor Robin Clean - Luke Jordan
Pick Poor Robin Clean - Geeshie Wiley and Elvie Thomas
Mamlish Blues - Ed Bell
Nappy Head Blues - Bobby Grant

Show 27 - Policy Blues

Show 27 - Policy Blues

Policy is the lottery-- an illegal numbers game that was hugely popular at the end of the nineteenth and in the first few decades of the twentieth century. You'd pick three numbers and hope they hit. The name comes from the practice of allowing bettors to make an “insurance policy” bet on tomorrow's numbers to offset potential losses, a gambler could make a policy bet that his ticket would come up blank insuring he would get something back on a losing ticket. Eventually the entire game came to be called policy and this “insurance” came to be useful code for buying and selling tickets when the game was illegal.

North Mississippi/Memphis area bluesman Jim Jackson, tells us how the game is played in his 1928 son, “Policy Blues”. In “Playing Policy Blues” by Blind Blake, you hear him sing: “I played on Clearinghouse, couldn't make the grade.” Clearinghouse was a version of policy that attempted to ensure legitimacy by taking the last three numbers from the daily Federal Reserve Clearing House Report. The numbers were printed in the newspaper, ensuring that the policy company wasn't cheating the players. Kokomo Arnold sang about some of the problems inherent in dealing with the less honest policy game operators in Policy Wheel Blues. Bo Carter sang “Policy Blues,” he was one of the few bluesmen who came out a winner as he sings about waiting for the money he won.

One popular method of selecting numbers to play in a policy game was using the interpretation of dreams. Players consulted policy dream books to provide them with the lucky numbers their dreams suggested. These books were often published by the policy agents themselves. Bumble Bee Slim was one blues musician who wrote about a policy dream as one way to potentially beat the racket that was policy. Check out Kat Yronwode's excellent page on policy dream books including analysis of Blind Blake's lyrics.

Policy games are gone with the lottery business now controlled by the states. But these blues songs captured the essence of an important part of America's gambling culture that lasted for decades. These bluesmen and women reported what it was like to play policy and almost always lose at policy. But I guess that's what makes it the blues.

Songs:
Policy Blues - Jim Jackson
Playing Policy Blues - Blind Blake
Policy Wheel Blues - Kokomo Arnold
Policy Blues - Bo Carter
Policy Dream Blues - Bumble Bee Slim
Elzadie's Policy Blues - Elzadie Robinson

Show 26 - John Henry

Show 26 - John Henry

John Henry - Jimmy Owens
John Henry - Reese Crenshaw
John Henry - Big John Davis
John Henry - Arthur Bell
John Henry - Leadbelly
Death Of John Henry (Steel Driving Man) - Uncle Dave Macon
John Henry - Henry Thomas

Show 25 - Yellow, Brown, or Black

Prejudice against people with darker skin is widely documented in many cultures and stereotypes about yellow, brown, and black are still common. When the songs in this show were recorded, skin-lightening cream products ads were always seen alongside the blues record advertisements in black newspapers like the Chicago Defender. The assumption was that light skinned was automatically more attractive. Blues singers often subverted this assumption but at times reinforced it. The popular music comedy team from the 1920s, Butterbeans and Susie, sing in Brown Skin Gal about how a brown skinned girl can be trusted and is the best even though she might not have the money, status, or look as good as a yellow.

Leroy Carr and Scrapper Blackwell have a similar take in Good Woman Blues. In It’s Heated, Frankie “Half-Pint” Jaxon gives his ideas about sexual stereotypes with the darkest woman coming out on top: “Now a yellow gal is like a frigid zone, brownskin's about the same. You want some good loving get yourself an old Crow Jane.” The term Crow Jane shows up in dozens of blues songs referring to dark women.

Texas Alexander subscribed to the lighter is better school in Yellow Girl Blues: “Black woman evil, brownskin evil too. Going to get me a yellow woman and see what she will do.”

Some male blues singers expressed the attitude that the high status of light-skinned women made them more difficult to deal with as romantic partners. That ideas was thar light-skinned women may be more beautiful, have more money, and a generally higher status, but they won’t treat a man well. Bo Weavil Jackson sang in Some Scream High Yellow: “Some Scream High Yellow, I scream black or brown. High yellow may mistreat you, but black won't turn you down.”

Harry Gay and Stephen Tarter from Scott County, Virginia recorded just two songs. Brownie Blues dealt with skin color. Tarter sang that women on both ends of the color spectrum should be avoided:
“Want no Jet black woman burn no bread for me
Jet black is evil and she sure might poison me
Jet Black is evil and so is yellow too
I’m so glad I’m brown skinned, don’t know what to do”

Bessie Smith seemed to use her skin color as an excuse to be wild in her 1926 recording Young Woman’s Blues: “I ain't no high yellow, I'm a deep killer brown. I ain't going to marry, ain't going to settle down.”

An individual’s place on the continuum of African-American skin color has always affected status in society and the perception of their attractiveness. Terms like High Yellow or Crow Jane may fade away or change meaning, but prejudices based on skin tone never seem to go away. These blues songs give us a glimpse about some attitudes about skin color during the pre-war period. Bluesmen expressed their preference for yellow, black, or brown in song. Sometimes “Jet Black is Evil” other times “The Blacker the Berry the sweeter the Juice”, but it seems there’s no escape from stereotypes based on skin.

Check out Wallace Thurman’s 1929 novel The Blacker the Berry for a contemporary fictional take on the “colorism” issues presented by these blues songs.

Show 25 - Yellow, Brown, or Black

Songs:
Brown Skin Gal - Butterbeans and Susie
Good Woman Blues - Leroy Carr
It's Heated - Frankie 'Half-Pint' Jaxon
Yellow Girl Blues - Texas Alexander
Some Scream High Yellow - Bo Weavil Jackson
Brownie Blues - Harry Gay and Stephen Tarter
Young Woman's Blues - Bessie Smith

Show 24 - Hard Times Blues

Show 24 - Hard Times Blues

Songs:
Hard Times Killing Floor - Skip James
We Sure Got Hard Times - Barbecue Bob
Hard Time Blues - Scrapper Blackwell
It's Hard Time - Joe Stone
Hard Times Blues - Charlie Spand
Hard Time Blues - Darby & Tarlton
Hard Time Blues - Josh White

Show 23 - Black Snake Moan

Show 23 - Black Snake Moan

Songs:
Black Snake Moan - Blind Lemon Jefferson
Black Snake Blues - Victoria Spivey
Jet Black Snake - Jewell Nelson
New Black Snake Moan - Leadbelly
It's So Cold in China - Mississippi Moaner
Jet Black Snake - Roosevelt Sykes
Black Snake - John Henry Howard
Black Snake Dream Blues - Blind Lemon Jefferson

Show 22 - Henry Townsend Appreciation

Show 22 - Henry Townsend Appreciation

An appreciation of bluesman Henry Townsend who died Sunday, September 24, 2006 at age 96.

Story from St. Louis Post-Dispatch

Songs:
Doctor, Oh Doctor - Henry Townsend
Long Ago Blues - Henry Townsend
Henry's Worry Blues - Henry Townsend
Poor Man Blues - Henry Townsend
A Ramblin' Mind - Henry Townsend
Jack of Diamonds Georgia Rub - Henry Townsend