CHAPTER III
SONGS OF THE LONESOME ROAD
The blues par excellence are, of course, to be found in those songs of sorrow and disappointment and longing which center around the love relation.[22] But the song of the “po’ boy long ways from home” who wanders “down that lonesome road” is rich in pathos and plaintiveness. The wanderer is not unlike the old singer who sang,
Sometimes I hangs my head an’ cries
I’m po’ little orphan chile in de worl’
Sometimes I feel like a motherless chile
Nobody knows de trouble I’ve had
This ol’ worl’s been a hell to me
I’m rollin’ through an unfriendly worl’
[22] See [Chapters VII] and [VIII] for the songs of this type. This chapter deals with more general lonesome songs.
Typical of the lonesome note in the present-day songs of the wanderer are the following lines: