[Image: Singing the Blues, 2013, JA Van Devender]
Location: Freeport, ME, 2013
Psalm 6:3 (NKJV)
3 My soul also is greatly troubled; But You, O Lord—how long?
YOU DON'T KNOW MY MIND, sung by Hugh Laurie (here)
She won't cook my dinner, won't wash my clothes
Won't do nothing but walk the road
Baby you don't know, you don't know my mind
When you see me laughing, I'm laughing just to keep from crying...
He wasn't up there with the Rev. Gary Davis, Muddy Waters, The Allman Bros, W. C. Handy, B. B. King, Eric Clapton or more recently, even Hugh Laurie.... but he wasn't bad. The picking was clean and the voice carried that impossible to define quality of abuse which alone distinguishes a true blues singer from the "wannabees". There were plenty of bad decisons, hard luck and plain old foolish stubbornness filtering into the intonations and the guitar riffs. I put a couple of bucks in his hat, sat and listened for a while and asked if I could take a couple of photos. True to his genre, that was no problem. He could have just as easily have been sitting in Memphis... or Chicago... or New Orleans although his appearance was still "too white" to have won ready acceptance in those places. Touristy Freeport, Me, with its picturesque vistas, clean streets and well maintained buildings was a bit of a clash. The blues' natural habitat are run down shacks or decrepit, depressing store-front buildings with cracked windows and trash in the streets. But, and I suppose that is the point... the blues are sung everywhere.
David was singing the blues back in the day. Everyone appeared to be against him... the "workers of iniquity" were causing him grief on every side... he was having trouble sleeping because of the sweeping emotions and fears that plagued his bed time hours... he was too upset to even desire to die... he didn't want his enemies to have the satisfaction. A king he may have been but the blues were his song.
I suppose that general idea is why the blues still resonate with us even in the midst of such great prosperity and wealth. The words are often silly ... see above... and by definition, the basic chords are as simple as you can get. But man how evocative of our human condition they can be, especially when sung and played by those who know what it's all about. Sometimes our sadness is dispersed by playful and humorous self-parody as we recognize that what we are celebrating is mostly self-pity. But even there, it is conditioned by the fact that though it is self-pity, yet it was working on us and the blues were having their day. There are other times though... when we wonder if hope is an illusion and when the difficulties of life appear insurmountable and our hearts are just not up to the fight anymore, that singing the blues communicates what pure self-description and analysis can never articulate.
There are groanings just too deep for words. Those are the times when the reality of our frailty, the wideness of our problems, the insignificance of our being all come together in one big joy flattening crush. Here is fallen mankind and there is no joy to be found there. If it is to be discovered it has to come from somewhere else. That's the real foundation for every true blues song ever sung.
Of course the gospel is that joy is available... and the truth that it is not be be found in fallen human efforts and potential does not limit it. But the joy of the gospel only truly is comprehended and appreciated by that one who has first sung the blues... and meant it.
Sing on brother... and may God shine His grace on you and give you peace and a reason to sing a new song with all the angels in heaven as back-up.
Comments