Bill’s wife rid ’hin’ de hearse,
She rid in a hack,
I kotch her grinnin’ at her new daddy
Out’n a crack.
She’s got another daddy, Lawd,
She’s got another daddy.
CHAPTER IX
WOMAN’S SONG OF MAN
Woman’s song of man is in most respects parallel to man’s song of woman. Her themes are about the same. She sings of her “man” or “daddy,” of her disappointments and failures in love, of her unfaithful lover, and of her own secret amours.
It will be noticed that woman’s song conforms quite closely to the blues type as it is popularly known today. In [Chapter I] examples of the “mama” blues titles were given and in [Chapter II] it was pointed out that the majority of the formal blues of today deal with the sex theme. Furthermore, most of these blues are sung from the point of view of woman. Consequently, as songs that may be remembered and sung from day to day, they appear more acceptable to woman than to man. Perhaps this explains why the influence of the formal blues is encountered so frequently in the kind of songs with which this chapter is concerned. At any rate, it is becoming increasingly difficult to find a song of woman on the man theme which does not show the influence of the popular blues.[70]
[70] After consulting dozens of popular pieces, in both sheet music and phonograph record form, we have been able to trace some of these songs to them, but we feel sure that the influence of the formal blues is present in many other songs in this and other chapters, even though we have failed so far to locate the direct evidence. We have omitted many songs that were clearly of formal origin, although the singers insisted that they were entirely original.