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THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA
SOCIAL STUDY SERIES

NEGRO WORKADAY SONGS

NEGRO WORKADAY SONGS

BY

HOWARD W. ODUM, Ph.D.

Kenan Professor of Sociology and Director of
the School of Public Welfare, University of
North Carolina

AND

GUY B. JOHNSON, A.M.

Institute for Research in Social Science,
University of North Carolina

CHAPEL HILL
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS
LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD
OXFORD UNIVERSITY PRESS
1926

Copyright, 1926, By
The University of North Carolina Press
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Presses of
Edwards & Broughton Company
RALEIGH

A vast throng of Negro workaday singers, mirrors of a race

Workingmen in the Southern United States from highway, construction camp, from railroad and farm, from city and countryside, a million strong

A half million migrants from the South, Eastward, Northward, Westward, and some South again

Negro offenders in thousand fold in local jails, county chain gangs, state and federal prisons

A horde of Southern casual laborers and wanderers down that lonesome road

A brown black army of “bad men”—creepers and ramblers and jamboree breakers, “travelin’ men” de luxe

Itinerant full-handed musicianers, music physicianers and songsters, singly, in pairs, quartets, always moving on

A host of women workers from field and home and factory at once singers and subjects of the lonesome blues

A swelling crescendo, a race vibrato inimitable, descriptive index of group character, folk urge and race power

PREFACE

Negro Workaday Songs is the third volume of a series of folk background studies of which The Negro and His Songs was the first and Folk-Beliefs of the Southern Negro was the second. The series will include a number of other volumes on the Negro and likewise a number presenting folk aspects of other groups. The reception which the first volumes have received gives evidence that the plan of the series to present scientific, descriptive, and objective studies in as interesting and readable form as possible may be successful in a substantial way. Since the data for background studies are, for the time being, practically unlimited, it is hoped that other volumes, appearing as they become available and timely, may glimpse the whole range—from the Negro “bad man” to the æsthetic in the folk urge.

In this volume, as in previous ones, the emphasis is primarily social, although this indicates no lack of appreciation of the inherent literary and artistic values of the specimens presented. Indeed, so far as possible, all examples of folk expression in this volume are left to tell their own story. The type melodies and musical notations are presented separately with the same descriptive purpose as the other chapters, and they are not offered as a substitute for effective harmonies and musical interpretation. For the purposes of this volume, however, the separate chapters on the melodies and phono-photographic records with musical notations are very important. It is also important that they be studied separately, but in the light of the preceding chapters, rather than inserted in the text to detract from both the social and artistic interpretation of the songs enumerated.

The Seashore-Metfessel phono-photographic records and musical notations mark an important contribution to the whole field of interpretation of Negro music. There may be an outstanding contribution both to the musical world and to the whole interpretation of Negro backgrounds in the possible thesis that the Negro, in addition to his distinctive contribution to harmony, excels also in the vibrato quality of the individual voice. These studies were made at Chapel Hill and at Hampton by Dr. Carl E. Seashore and Dr. Milton Metfessel of the University of Iowa, under the auspices of the Institute for Research in Social Science at the University of North Carolina through a special grant of the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial. Full acknowledgment to them is here made.

It should be kept constantly in mind that this volume, like The Negro and His Songs, is in no sense an anthology or general collection, but represents the group of songs current in certain areas in North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, during the years 1924-25. Of course all of this collection cannot be included in this volume; and no doubt many of the most important or most attractive specimens extant have escaped us at this time. It is also important to note that in this volume, as in the previous one, all specimens listed, except lines or references otherwise designated, were taken directly from Negro singers and do not represent reports from memory of white individuals. So far as we know none of the songs in this collection has been published, although there are countless variations, adaptations and corruptions of the modern blues and jazz songs represented in the group. The songs, however, were all sung or repeated by actual Negro workers or singers, and much of their value lies in the exact transcription of natural lines, words, and mixtures. The collection is still growing by leaps and bounds. In this volume every type is represented except the “dirty dozen” popular models and the more formal and sophisticated creations.

Since this volume presents a series of pictures of the Negro as portrayed through his workaday songs it is important that all chapters be read before any final judgment is made. Even then the picture will not be complete. It has not been possible, of course, to make any complete or accurate classification of the songs. They overlap and repeat. They borrow sentiment and expression and repay freely. Free labor song becomes prison song, and chain gang melody turns to pick-and-shovel accompaniment. The chapter divisions, therefore, are made with the idea of approximating a usable classification and providing such mechanical divisions as will facilitate the best possible presentation.

The reader who approaches this volume from the point of view of the technical student of folk song will likely be disappointed at what he considers the lack of discrimination displayed by the authors in admitting so many songs which cannot be classed as strictly folk songs. We have frankly taken the position that these semi-folk songs, crude and fragmentary, and often having only local or individual significance, afford even more accurate pictures of Negro workaday life and art than the conventional folk songs. While we have spared no effort to make the collection valuable for folk song students, we have approached the work primarily as sociologists.

For assistance in recording the type melodies in Chapter XIV we are specially indebted to Mr. Lee M. Brooks, and for many of the songs of women to Mrs. Henry Odum. We wish to thank Mr. Gerald W. Johnson for his goodness in going over much of the manuscript and making valuable suggestions. To Dr. L. R. Wilson, Director of the University of North Carolina Press, we are much indebted for coöperation and suggestions.

Chapel Hill H. W. O.
January, 1926 G. B. J.

CONTENTS

NEGRO WORKADAY SONGS

CHAPTER I
BACKGROUND RESOURCES IN NEGRO SONG AND WORK

To discover and present authentic pictures of the Negro’s folk background as found in his workaday songs is a large and promising task of which there are many phases. Here are spontaneous products of the Negro’s workaday experiences and conflicts. Here are reflections of his individual strivings and his group ways. Here are specimens of folk art and creative effort close to the soil. Here are new examples of the Negro’s contributions to the American scene. Here is important material for the newer scientific interest which is taking the place of the old sentimental viewpoint. And here is a mine of descriptive and objective data to substitute for the emotional and subjective attitudes of the older days.

It is a day of great promise in the United States when both races, North and South, enter upon a new era of the rediscovery of the Negro and face the future with an enthusiasm for facts, concerning both the newer creative urge and the earlier background sources. Concerning the former, Dr. Alain Locke recently has said:[1] “Whoever wishes to see the Negro in his essential traits, in the full perspective of his achievement and possibilities, must seek the enlightenment of that self-portraiture which the present development of the Negro culture offers.” One of the best examples of that self-portraiture is that of the old spirituals, long neglected, but now happily the subject of a new race dedication and appreciation. Now comes another master index of race temperament and portrayal, as found in some of the Negro’s newer creations. No less important, from the viewpoint of sheer originality and poetic effort as well as of indices of traits and possibilities, are the seemingly unlimited mines of workaday songs, weary blues, and black man ballads. In a previous volume[2] we presented a sort of composite picture from two hundred songs gathered two decades ago and interpreted with something of prophetic evaluation. In this volume of Negro Workaday Songs is presented a deeper mine of source material, rich in self-portraiture and representative of the workaday Negro.

[1] The New Negro, edited by Alain Locke.

[2] The Negro and His Songs, by Howard W. Odum and Guy B. Johnson.

In his Peter the Czar, violent story of “lashed sentences,” perfectly suited to the depiction of primitive character, Klabund pictures vividly a certain Great Enemy about whose “shivering shoulders lay a rainbow like a silken shawl.” Digging to the syncopated rhythm of song and fast-whirling pick, a Negro workman sings of another rainbow, equally vivid and shoulder-draped, more concrete, personal, and real:

Ev’ywhere I look this,

Ev’ywhere I look this mo’nin’,

Looks like rain.

I got rainbow

Tied ’round my shoulder,

Ain’t gonna rain,

Lawd, ain’t gonna rain.[3]

[3] Musical notation will be found in [Chapter XIV].

In addition to the poetic imagery in this seemingly unconscious motor-minded product, one may glimpse evidences of simple everyday experience, wishful thought, childlike faith, workaday stolidity, physical satisfaction, and subtle humor. But he can find still more humor and experience, with a good bit of metaphor thrown in for good measure, in the “feet rollin’” stanza of another wanderer’s song of the road:

I done walk till,

Lawd, I done walk till

Feet’s gone to rollin’,

Jes’ lak a wheel,

Lawd, jes’ lak a wheel.

Resourcefulness, humor, defense mechanism, imagination, all might be found in the spectacle of a group of Negroes singing over and over again on a hot July day the refreshing lines,

Oh, next winter gonna be so cold,

Oh, next winter gonna be so cold,

Oh, next winter gonna be so cold,

Fire can’t warm you, be so cold.

With the thermometer around a hundred, and the work of digging at hand, this song of “parts,” with some of the singers using the words, “be so cold, be so cold” as an echo, undoubtedly had peculiar merit.

Perhaps there have been few, if any, lines of poetry more popular than Wordsworth’s “The light that never was on sea or land.” The Negro worker sings of a more earthly yet equally miraculous light to guide his pathway, when he complains,

Now ev’y time I,

Time I start ’round mountain,

My light goes out,

Lawd, Lawd, my light goes out.

I’m gonna buy me,

Buy me magnified lantern,

It won’t go out,

Lawd, Lawd, it won’t go out.

How much of symbolism is to be found in the Negro’s workaday songs? How much subjective imagery, how much unconscious allegory? There are abundant examples of the free use of symbolism in his love songs and popular jazz appeals. But what does he mean when he sings,

Ever see wild cat

Hug a lion, Lawd, Lawd?

My ol’ bear cat

Turn to lion, Lawd, Lawd.

Ever see lion

Run lak hell, Lawd, Lawd?

Or contrast this simple individual song, with its humor and easy-going rhythm, with the power and appeal of group singing. Here is a goodly party of two-score white folk, seated at twilight under the trees in a grove, joyous guests at a turkey dinner near the old colonial home. There is merriment. Song and jest, toast and cheer abound. The waiters have gone. Then from the kitchen door comes the song of Negroes, beginning low, rising in volume, telling of the sinking of the Titanic. What is it in that final harmony of “God moved upon the waters,” sung by a Negro group, which silenced the merrymakers into willing recognition that here may be perfect art and perfect effect? Does this Negro minstrel type, rendered thus in native setting, become for the moment the perfect expression of folk spirit and folk art?

Hundreds of verses dedicated to the business of moving about give evidence that the trail of the black knight of the road is strewn with spontaneous song, often turned into polished phrase. A favorite stanza has long been descriptive of being “on road here few days longer, then I’ll be going home.” Sung again and again, the song takes on a new form but loses nothing of its emphatic meaning:

I’m gonna row here,

I’m gonna row here

Few days longer,

Then I’ll be gone,

Lawd, I’ll be gone.

For, says the worker, “If I feel tomorrow like I feel today, I’m gonna pack my suitcase and walk away,” and “reason I’m workin’ here so long, hot flambotia and coffee strong.”

Following the trail of the workaday Negro, therefore, one may get rare glimpses of common backgrounds of Negro life and experience in Southern communities. Here were the first real plantings of the modern blues, here songs of the lonesome road, here bad man ballads, here distinctive contributions in songs of jail and chain gang, here songs of white man and captain, here Negro Dr. Jekyls and Mr. Hydes. Here are found new expressions of the old spirituals and remnants still surviving. Here man’s song of woman is most varied and original, and woman’s song of man is best echoed from days and nights of other times. Here are reflected the epics of John Henry, Lazarus, Dupree, and the others. Here are folk fragments, cries and “hollers,” songs to help with work, physical satisfaction and solace, the “Lawdy-Lawdy” vibrato of evening melancholy and morning yodel. Here may be found the subliminal jazz, rare rhythm and movement, coöperative harmony as characteristic as ever the old spirituals revealed. Nevertheless, too much emphasis cannot be placed upon the danger of over-interpretation, for while the workaday songs provide a seemingly exhaustive supply of mirror plate for the reflection of folk temperament and struggle, too much analysis must not obscure their vividness or the beauty and value of their intrinsic qualities.

It is important to note the extent to which the notable popular blues of today, more formal embodiment of the Negro’s workaday sorrow songs, have come from these workaday products. Here are true descendants of the old worshipers who sang so well of the Rock in a weary land. And echoing from Southern distances, from Memphis and Natchez, from New Orleans and Macon, from Charleston and Atlanta, and from wayside roads and camps, from jail and chain gang, come unmeasured volume of harmony, unnumbered outbursts of song, perfect technique of plaintive appeal. Many of the most plaintive lines of blues yet recorded were gathered decades ago from camp and road in Mississippi before the technique of the modern blues had ever been evolved. Eloquent successors to the old spirituals with their sorrow-feeling, these songs of the lonesome road have gathered power and numbers and artistic interpretation until they defy description and record. Today the laborer, the migrant, the black man offender constitute types as distinctive and inimitable as the old jubilee singers and those whom they represented. Wherever Negroes work, or loaf, or await judgment, there may be heard the weary and lonesome blues so strange and varied as to reveal a sort of superhuman evidence of the folk soul. No amount of ordinary study into race backgrounds, or historical annals of African folk, or elaborate anthropological excursions can give so simply and completely the story of this Negro quest for expression, freedom, and solace as these low-keyed melancholy songs.

And what names and lines, words and melodies, records and improvisations of the new race blues! Plaintive blues, jolly blues, reckless blues, dirty dozen blues, mama blues, papa blues,—more than six hundred listed by one publisher and producer. Here they are—the workaday sorrow songs, the errant love songs, the jazz lyrics of a people and of an age—as clearly distinctive as the old spirituals. And how like the road songs and the gang lines, straight up from the soil again, straight from the folk as surely as ever came the old spirituals.

Samples of the growing list of blues, some less elegant, some more aggressive, will be found in [Chapter II]. And of course we must not forget the bad man blues: Dangerous Blues, Evil Blues, Don’t Mess With Me Blues, Mean Blues, Wicked Blues, and most of all the Chain Gang Blues, Jail Blues, and the Cell-bound Blues.

All boun’ in prison,

All boun’ in jail,

Col’ iron bars all ’roun’ me,

No one to pay my bail.

And the singer presents, as one of his standard versions of many songs, a regular weekly calendar:

Monday I was ’rested,

Tuesday I was fined,

Wednesday I laid in jail,

Thursday I was tried,

Friday wid chain gang band,

Saturday pick an’ shovel,

Sunday I took my rest,

Monday wanta do my best.

Perhaps the most common concept found in the chain gang and road songs and appearing here and there in all manner of song is the concept of a letter from home, the inability to go home without “ready money,” the attempt to borrow from the captain, or to get a parole.

Every, every mail day,

I gits letter from my mother,

Cryin’, “Son, come home,

Lawdy, son, come home.”

I didn’t have no,

No ready-made money,

I couldn’t go home,

Lawd, couldn’t go home.

A constant source of song is the conflict between actual conditions and desirable ends, between life as it is and ideals of wishful dreaming. “I want to go home,” says the workman, but “I don’t want no trouble wid de walker.” The resulting product is absence from home, absence of trouble with the captain or walker, and abundance of song.

I don’t want no trouble,

I don’t want no trouble,

I don’t want no trouble wid de walker.

Lawd, Lawd, I wanta go home.

Me an’ my buddy jes’ come,

Me an’ my buddy jes’ come,

Me an’ my buddy jes’ come here.

Lawd, Lawd, wanta go home.

Again and again the Negro wanderer portrays home, parents, brothers and sisters, friends, as the most highly esteemed of life’s values—striking paradox to the realism of his practice. Idealism in song and dreams, in workaday songs as well as spirituals, alongside sordidness in living conditions and physical surroundings, appear logical and direct developments from the type of habitation which the Negro common man has ever known.

The Negro “bad man” who sings sorrowfully of his mother’s admonitions and his own mistakes, glories also in the motor-imaged refrain:

In come a nigger named Billy Go-helf,

Coon wus so mean wus skeered uf hisself;

Loaded wid razors an’ guns, so they say,

’Cause he killed a coon most every day.

A [later chapter] is devoted to this notable character, the “bad man,” whose varied pictures represent a separate Negro contribution. Here are new and worthy Negro exhibits to add to the American galaxy of folk portraits: Railroad Bill alongside Jesse James, the Negro “bad man” beside the Western frontiersman, and John Henry by Paul Bunyan. For from the millions of Negroes of yesterday and as many more today, with their oft-changing and widely varying economic and social conditions, has come a rare and varied heritage of folk tradition, folk character, and folk personality. Much of this might remain forever unknown and unsung were it not for the treasure-house of Negro song, the product of a happy facility for linking up the realities of actual life with wishful thinking and imaginative story.

Of the grand old “saints,” white haired “Uncles” and “Aunties,” we have viewed from near and far scores of inimitable examples. Of the thousands of musicianers, songsters and workers, and those who sing “down that lonesome road,” recent epochs have mirrored many. But what of the real and mythical jamboree breakers and bad men, or of Po’ Lazarus and Stagolee, or of John Henry, “forehanded steel-drivin’ man” and ideal of the Negro worker?

Here are rare folk figures silhouetted against a sort of shifting race background with its millions of working folk and wanderers moving suddenly and swiftly across the scene. A brown-black army of ramblers, creepers, high flyers, standin’ men, all-night workers, polish men, “stick and ready” from the four corners of the States—Lazarus, Billy Bob Russel, Shootin’ Bill, Brady, Dupree, and the others. And then John Henry, stately and strong in contrast, noble exponent of sturdy courage and righteous struggle, faithful to death.

John Henry went to the mountain,

Beat that steam-drill down;

Rock was high, po’ John was small,

He laid down his hammer an’ he died,

Laid down his hammer an’ he died.

A [chapter] on “Man’s Song of Woman” will make but a small beginning of a large task. Its sequel must be deferred until the lover’s specialisms can be published with a liberal usage of the psychiatrists’ terminology. A [chapter] on “Woman’s Song of Man” ought also to have a companion sequel in the book of Negro symbolism. A [chapter] on “Workaday Religious Songs” can present only a small portion of those now being sung, but will be representative of the present heritage of the old spirituals. A [chapter] on the miscellaneous fragments, “hollers,” lines, incoherent and expressive “Lawdy-Lawd-Lawds” gives one of the best pictures of the Negro workaday character and habits. Some of these types make a very good safety valve for the Negro singer; in a different way their plainness may restrain the enthusiast from setting too much “store” by all the Negro’s songs. The characters of John Henry and Left Wing represent two types, one the mythical and heroic, the other the real and commonplace, both typical of the Negro’s idealism and his actual life. The examples of “movement and imagery” are as characteristic of the Negro workaday experience as were the harmonies and swaying of the old spirituals. They are indices to guide judgment and interpretation of the Negro temperament. In each of these chapters, it will be understood, only enough material is presented to illustrate the case, including, however, always the most representative specimens which the authors have been able to collect within their field and time limit. Much that is similar will necessarily await publication in volumes in which the chief objective will be preservation and completeness rather than interpretation.

Many pictures of the workaday Negro are presented in this volume through the medium of his songs. They are silhouetted, as it were, at first against a complex background of Negro life and experience. The pictures are vivid, concrete, distinct, often complete. But most of all, perhaps, they have been moving pictures. From the first glimpse of the Negro singer with his “feet’s gone to rollin’ jes’ lak a wheel,” to the last great scene of John Henry dying with the “hammer in his hand,” there is marvelous movement alongside rare imagery. Sometimes rhythm and rhyme, but always movement, have dominated the Negro’s chief characterizations. And this movement in the workaday songs is as much a distinctive feature as were the swaying bodies, the soothing rhythm, and swelling harmony of the old spirituals. Picture the Negro workingman in his song and story life and you picture him on the move.

It is scarcely possible to describe this element of movement in the Negro workaday songs. And yet the mere citation and classification of representative examples will suffice to point out the particular qualities of action which might justify the added element of epic style, if one remembers that the singer’s concept of the heroic, while very real, is not exalted in the Greek sense. There are those who do not feel that the Negro’s workaday songs are characterized by the qualities of poetry; yet do they not arouse the feelings and imagination in vivid and colorful language? The type of language used—that is the Negro’s own. In the same way there can be no doubt of his songs emphasizing the quality of action; his heroes and principal figures, like his language, reflect his concepts and tell his stories. Whether epic or heroic,

I’m the hot stuff man,

From the devil’s land,

I’m a greasy streak o’ lightning,

Don’t you see, don’t you see?

has plenty of action and imagery in it. And it is characteristic of much of the Negro workaday style of talk, imagination, and thought.

Many of the pictures are vivid because of the action concept and the rhyming metaphors.

In come a nigger named Slippery Jim,

None of de gals would dance wid him,

He rech in his pocket an’ drew his thirty-two,

Dem niggers didn’t run, good Gawd, dey flew.

There was also a woman, one Eliza Stone, from a bad, bad land, who threatened to break up the jamboree with her razor but who also “jumped in de flo’, an’ doubled up her fist, say ‘You wanter test yo’ nerve jes’ jump against this.’” Note further a varying reel of moving characters and scenes.

Police got into auto

An’ started to chase that coon,

They run ’im from six in the mo’nin’,

Till seven that afternoon.

The coon he run so bloomin’ fas’

Till fire come from his heels,

He scorched the cotton an’ burnt the corn,

An’ cut a road through farmers’ fiel’s.

The continuous search after the workaday folk song will always provide one of the most important guides to the “discovery” of the Negro. The task of finding and recording accurately the folk expression is a difficult one under most circumstances. Under certain circumstances it is an easy task, and always an interesting one. If we keep a record of efforts, taken at random, as experimental endeavor, in a cross country visit through North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and Georgia, about ten per cent, at best, of the requests for songs will be successful. There are other times, when setting and procedure are worked out well, when almost one hundred per cent success would be attained. In most instances the Negro is at his “best” when being urged to coöperate in the rendering of his folk songs. By his “best” is meant that he reveals a striking nature and strong personality, whether in affirming stoutly that he knows no songs now or that he has forgotten what he used to know. He protests vigorously that he does not sing well enough, that he cannot say the words of songs unless he can sing, that he cannot sing unless others are singing, that he has to be in the spirit of the song, or that he will get some songs together and bring them in, or that he will bring a quartet or a pal. Rarely ever does he “produce” if let alone with only a first approach. Nor can he be blamed. He is entirely within his own self-protecting domain, so that his attitude may be put down, not only as a characteristic one but also as a commendable one. He has his own fun, too, in the situation. In general there are several types from which little success may be expected. The more educated and sophisticated Negro not only does not as a rule coöperate, but looks with considerable condescension upon those who seek his help. There are many who believe that all songs desired are for immediate transcription to printed music or phonograph record. These are of little assistance. Others feel that some hidden motive is back of the request. Still others for various reasons do not coöperate. Nor will the Negro student or musician himself find ready coöperation among his common folk who feel constrained to withhold their folk art from the learned of their own race.

Perhaps the most striking observation that comes from the whole experience is the seemingly inexhaustible supply of songs among the workaday Negroes of the South. We have yet to find a “bottom” or a limit in the work songs among the crowds of working men in one community. Just as often as there is opportunity to hear a group of Negroes singing at work, just so often have we found new songs and new fragments. There is so far no exception to this rule. Likewise we have yet to find an individual, whose efforts have been freely set forth in the offering of song, whose supply of songs has been exhausted. Time and time again the approach has been made, with the response, “Naw, sir, cap’n, I don’t know no songs much,” with an ultimate result of song after song, seemingly with no limit. Partly the singer is honest; he does not at the time, think of many songs nor does he consider himself a good singer; but when he turns himself “loose” his capacity for memory and singing is astonishing.

The same general rule with reference to dialect is used in this volume as was the case in The Negro and His Songs.[4] There can be no consistency, except the consistency of recording the words as nearly as possible as rendered. Words may occur in two or three variations in a single stanza and sometimes in a single line. The attempt to make formal dialect out of natural speech renders the product artificial and less artistic. We have therefore followed the general practice of keeping the dialect as simple as possible. Dialect, after all, is a relative matter. It is the sort of speech which is not used in one’s own section of the country. As a matter of fact, much of what has passed as Negro dialect is good white Southern usage, and there is nothing to justify the attempt to set aside certain pronunciations as peculiar to the Negro simply because a Negro is being quoted. Consequently we have refrained from the use of dialect in all cases where the Negro pronunciation and the usual white pronunciation are the same or practically the same. If the reader will grasp the basic points of difference between Negro and white speech and will then keep in mind the principle of economy, he will have no difficulty in following the peculiarities of dialect.

[4] The Negro and His Songs, pp. 9-11, 293-94. There is a good discussion of dialect in James Weldon Johnson’s Book of American Negro Spirituals, pp. 42-46.

The principle of economy will be found to operate at high efficiency in Negro speech. It will nearly always explain the apparent inconsistencies in dialect. For example, the Negro often says ’bout and ’roun’ for about and around. But he might vary these to about, aroun’, ’round, and around in a single song, depending upon the preceding and succeeding sounds. He would say, “I’ll go ’bout two o’clock,” but he also would say, “I went about two o’clock,” because in the former case it is easier to say ’bout than about, while in the latter the reverse is true.

Rhythm is also related to dialect. In ordinary speech most Negroes would say broke for broken, but if the rhythm in singing called for a two-syllable sound they would say broken rather than broke.

Very few of the popular songs which we heard twenty years ago are found now in the same localities. The places that knew them will know them no more. The same disappearing process is going on now, only more rapidly than formerly because of the multitude of blues, jazz songs, and others being distributed throughout the land in millions of phonographic records. One of the first tasks of this volume is, therefore, to take cognizance of these formal blues, both in their relation to the workaday native creations and as an important segment of the Negro’s music and his contribution to the American scene. In the next chapter we shall proceed, therefore, to discuss the blues.

CHAPTER II
THE BLUES: WORKADAY SORROW SONGS

No story of the workaday song life of the Negro can proceed far without taking into account the kind of song known as the blues, for, next to the spirituals, the blues are probably the Negro’s most distinctive contribution to American art. They have not been taken seriously, because they have never been thoroughly understood. Their history needs to be written. The present chapter is not a complete statement. It merely presents some of the salient points in the story of the blues and offers some suggestions as to their rôle in Negro life.

Behind the popular blues songs of today lie the more spontaneous and naïve songs of the uncultured Negro. Long before the blues were formally introduced to the public, the Negro was creating them by expressing his gloomy moods in song. To be sure, the present use of the term “blues” to designate a particular kind of popular song is of recent origin, but the use of the term in Negro song goes much further back, and the blue or melancholy type of Negro secular song is as old as the spirituals themselves. The following song might be taken at first glance for one of the 1926 popular “hits,” but it dates back to the time of the Civil War.[5]

[5] Allen, Ware, and Garrison, Slave Songs of the United States, p. 89. This note is appended: “A very good specimen ... of the strange barbaric songs that one hears upon the Western steamboats.”

I’m gwine to Alabamy,—Oh,

For to see my mammy,—Ah.

She went from ole Virginny,—Oh,

And I’m her pickaniny,—Ah.

She lives on the Tombigbee,—Oh,

I wish I had her wid me,—Ah.

Now I’m a good big nigger,—Oh,

I reckon I won’t git bigger,—Ah.

But I’d like to see my mammy,—Oh,

Who lives in Alabamy,—Ah.

Very few of the Negro’s ante-bellum secular songs have been preserved, but there is every reason to suppose that he had numerous melancholy songs aside from the spirituals. At any rate, the earliest authentic secular collections abound in the kind of songs which have come to be known as the blues. The following expressions are typical of the early blues. They are taken from songs collected in Georgia and Mississippi between 1905 and 1908, and they were doubtless common property among the Negroes of the lower class long before that.[6]

[6] This collection was published by Howard W. Odum in the Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 24, pp. 255-94; 351-96.

Went to the sea, sea look so wide,

Thought about my babe, hung my head an’ cried.

O my babe, won’t you come home?

I got the blues, but too damn mean to cry,

Oh, I got the blues, but I’m too damn mean to cry.

Got nowhar to lay my weary head,

O my babe, got nowhar to lay my weary head.

I’m po’ boy long way from home,

Oh, I’m po’ boy long way from home.

Ever since I left dat country farm,

Ev’ybody been down on me.

Here are blues in the making. This is the stuff that the first published blues were made of, and some of it sounds strikingly like certain of the latest blues records issued by the phonograph companies. About 1910 the first published blues appeared, and since that time they have been exploited in every imaginable form by music publishers and phonograph companies.[7] The inter-relations between the formal blues and the native blues will be discussed later. At present it is necessary to take up certain questions concerning the nature of the blues.

[7] W. C. Handy is credited with having published the first blues (Memphis Blues, 1910) and with having had much to do with their popularization. He is still writing songs. His works include Memphis Blues, St. Louis Blues, Beale St. Blues, Joe Turner Blues, Yellow Dog Blues, Aunt Hagar’s Blues, and others.

What are the characteristics of the native blues, in so far as they can be spoken of as a type of song apart from other Negro songs? The original blues were so fragmentary and elusive—they were really little more than states of mind expressed in song—that it is difficult to characterize them definitely. The following points, then, are merely suggestive.

In the first place, blues are characterized by a tone of plaintiveness. Both words and music give the impression of loneliness and melancholy. In fact, it was this quality, combined with the Negro’s peculiar use of the word “blues,” which gave the songs their name. In the second place, the theme of most blues is that of the love relation between man and woman. There are many blues built around homesickness and hard luck in general, but the love theme is the principal one. Sometimes the dominant note is the complaint of the lover:

Goin’ ’way to leave you, ain’t comin’ back no mo’,

You treated me so dirty, ain’t comin’ back no mo’.[8]

Where was you las’ Sattaday night,

When I lay sick in bed?

You down town wid some other ol’ girl,

Wusn’t here to hol’ my head.[9]

Sometimes it is a note of longing:

I hate to hear my honey call my name,

Call me so lonesome and so sad.[10]

I believe my woman’s on that train,

O babe, I believe my woman’s on that train.[11]

At other times the dominant note is one of disappointment:

I thought I had a friend was true;

Done found out friends won’t do.[12]

All I hope in this bright worl’,

If I love anybody, don’t let it be a girl.[13]

[ [8] The Negro and His Songs, p. 184.

[ [9] Ibid., p. 185.

[10] Ibid., p. 224.

[11] Ibid., p. 222.

[12] Ibid., p. 250.

[13] Ibid., p. 181.

A third characteristic of the blues is the expression of self pity.[14] Often this is the outstanding feature of the song. There seems to be a tendency for the despondent or blue singer to use the technique of the martyr to draw from others a reaction of sympathy. Psychologically speaking, the technique consists of rationalization, by which process the singer not only excuses his shortcomings, but attracts the attention and sympathy of others—in imagination, at least—to his hard lot. The following expressions will make the point clear.[15]

[14] For a discussion of this subject, see Lomax, “Self-pity in Negro Folk Song,” Nation, vol. 105, pp. 141-45.

[15] Illustrations are taken from The Negro and His Songs unless otherwise indicated.

Bad luck in de family, sho’ God, fell on me,

Good ol’ boy, jus’ ain’t treated right.

Poor ol’ boy, long ways from home,

I’m out in dis wide worl’ alone.

Out in dis wide worl’ to roam,

Ain’t got no place to call my home.

Now my mama’s dead and my sweet ol’ popper too,

An’ I ain’t got no one fer to carry my troubles to.

If I wus to die, little girl, so far away from home,

The folks, honey, for miles around would mourn.

Now it is apparent to any one familiar with the folk songs of various peoples that the blues type, as it has been described above, is not peculiar to the Negro, but is more or less common to all races and peoples. So far as subject matter and emotional expression are concerned, the lonesome songs of the Kentucky mountaineer, of the cowboy, of the sailor, or of any other group, are representative of the blues type. If this be so, then why was it that the Negro’s song alone became the basis for a nationally popular type of song? The answer to this question is, of course, far from simple. For one thing, the whole matter of the Negro’s cultural position in relation to the white man is involved. The Negro’s reputation for humor and good singing is also important. Perhaps, too, the psychology of fads would have to be considered. But, speaking in terms of the qualities of the songs themselves, what is there about them to account for the superior status enjoyed by the Negro’s melancholy songs?

To begin with, the Negro’s peculiar use of the word “blues” in his songs was a circumstance of no mean importance. Much more significant, however, was the music of the blues. The blues originated, of course, with Negroes who had access to few instruments other than the banjo and the guitar. But such music as they brought forth from these instruments to accompany their blues was suited to the indigo mood. It was syncopated, it was full of bizarre harmonies, sudden changes of key and plaintive slurs. It was something new to white America, and it needed only an introduction to insure its success.

But there is still another feature of the blues which is probably responsible more than any other one thing for their appeal and fascination, and that is their lack of conventionality, their naïveté of expression. The Negro wastes no time in roundabout or stilted modes of speech. His tale is brief, his metaphor striking, his imagery perfect, his humor plaintive. Expressions like the following have made the blues famous.

Looked down the road jus’ far as I could see,

Well, the band did play “Nearer, My God to Thee.”

Well, I started to leave an’ I got ’way down the track;

Got to thinkin’ ’bout my woman, come a-runnin’ back.

Wish to God some ol’ train would run,

Carry me back where I came frum.

I laid in jail, back to the wall:

Brown skin gal cause of it all.[16]

[16] See Perrow, “Songs and Rhymes from the South,” Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 28, p. 190.

When the first published blues appeared, the problem for the student of Negro song began to become complicated. It is no longer possible to speak with certainty of the folk blues, so entangled are the relations between them and the formal compositions. This inter-relation is itself of such interest and importance that it demands the careful attention of students of folk song. Only a few points can be touched upon in the present work, but an attempt will be made at least to indicate some of the ramifications of the subject.

There is no doubt that the first songs appearing in print under the name of blues were based directly upon actual songs already current among Negroes.[17] Soon after Handy began to issue his blues, white people as well as Negroes were singing them heartily. But a song was never sung long in its original version alone. The half-dozen stanzas of the original often grew to a hundred or more, for many singers took pride in creating new stanzas or adapting parts of other songs to the new one. Sometimes publishers would issue second and third editions, incorporating in them the best of the stanzas which had sprung up since the preceding edition. Thus, even before the phonograph became the popular instrument that it is today, the interplay between folk creations and formal compositions had become extremely complex.

[17] See James Weldon Johnson, The Book of American Negro Poetry, pp. x-xiv; and Dorothy Scarborough, On the Trail of Negro Folk-Songs, pp. 269-70.

In the last ten years the phonograph record has surpassed sheet music as a conveyor of blues to the public. Sheet music, however, is still important. In fact, practically every “hit” is issued in both the published and phonographed form. But the phonograph record obviously has certain advantages, and it is largely responsible for the present popularity of the blues. Most of the large phonograph companies now maintain special departments devoted to the recording of “race blues.” They employ Negro artists, many of whom have already earned national reputations, and they advertise extensively, especially in the Negro press.

In spite of the extremes to which exploitation of the blues has gone in recent years, there is often an authentic folk element to be found in the present-day formal productions. Some of the phonograph artists are encouraged by their employers to sing blues of their own making. When the artist has had an intimate acquaintance with the life of his race and has grown up among the blues, so to speak, he is often able to produce a song which preserves faithfully the spirit of the folk blues. The folk productions of yesterday are likely to be found, albeit sometimes in versions scarcely recognizable, on the phonograph records of today. That this is the case is indicated by the following comparison of a few of the lines and titles of songs collected twenty years ago with lines and titles of recent popular blues songs.

[18] See Journal of American Folk-Lore, vol. 24; also The Negro and His Songs.

When a blues record is issued it quickly becomes the property of a million Negro workers and adventurers who never bought it and perhaps never heard it played. Sometimes they do not even know that the song is from a record. They may recognize in it parts of songs long familiar to them and think that it is just another piece which some songster has put together. Their desire to invent a different version, their skill at adapting stanzas of old favorites to the new music, and sometimes their misunderstanding of the words of the new song, result in the transformation of the song into many local variants. In other words, the folk creative process operates upon a song, the origin of which may already be mixed, and produces in turn variations that may later become the bases of other formal blues. A thorough exposition of this process would take us far beyond the limits of this volume, but the following instances are cited to illustrate generally the interplay between the folk blues and the formal blues.

Here is a specimen captured from a Negro girl in Georgia who had just returned from a trip to “Troit,” Michigan.

When you see me comin’

Throw yo’ woman out de do’,

For you know I’s no stranger,

For I’s been dere once befo’.

He wrote me a letter,

Nothin’ in it but a note.

I set down an’ writ him,

“I ain’t no billy goat.”

Standin’ on de platform,

Worried in both heart an’ soul;

An’ befo’ I’d take yo’ man

I’d eat grass like a Georgia mule.

I love my man

Lak I love myse’f.

If he don’t have me

He won’t have nobody else.

Now this song is a mixture of several popular blues. The first stanza is from the House Rent Blues, and is sung practically the same as on the phonograph record. The second stanza is from the Salt Water Blues and is like the original except for the repetition in the original of the first two lines. The third stanza is also from the Salt Water Blues, but it is a combination and variation of two stanzas which go as follows:

Sittin’ on the curbstone,

Worried in both heart an’ soul;

Lower than a ’possum

Hidin’ in a ground-hog hole.

I wrote my man,

“I ain’t nobody’s fool;

An’ befo’ I’d stand your talkin’

I’d eat grass like a Georgia mule.”

This girl does not worry over the lack of consistent meaning in the third stanza of her song. Furthermore, as far as she is concerned, “soul” and “mule” rhyme about as well as “fool” and “mule.” The fourth stanza of her song, finally, is taken from Any Woman’s Blues, there having been, however, a slight variation in the second line. The original is:

I love my man

Better than I love myself;

An’ if he don’t have me,

He won’t have nobody else.

Thus in a single song we have examples of the processes of borrowing, combining, changing, and misunderstanding through which formal material often goes when it gets into the hands of the common folk. The composite of four stanzas presented above has no very clear meaning in its present form, but at that it is about as coherent as any of the blues from which it was assembled.

Left Wing Gordon, whose story is told in [Chapter XII], is a good study in the relation of folk song and formal blues. Left Wing’s repertoire is practically unlimited, for he appears to have remembered everything that he has ever heard. One of his favorite expressions is

You don’t know my mind,

You don’t know my mind;

When you see my laughin’,

I’m laughin’ to keep from cryin’.

This comes from You Don’t Know My Mind Blues, a popular sheet music and phonograph piece today. Left Wing sings dozens of stanzas, some evidently from the published versions, some of his own making, ending each one with “You don’t know my mind,” etc. Nearly all of his songs showed this sort of mixture of formal and folk material.

As an example of the misunderstanding, deliberate twisting of the words of a phonograph blues, or lapse of memory, the following instance may be cited. In the Chain Gang Blues this stanza occurs.

Judge he gave me six months

’Cause I wouldn’t go to work.

From sunrise to sunset

I ain’t got no time to shirk.

A Southern Negro on a chain gang recently sang it thus:

Judge he give me sentence

’Cause I wouldn’t go to work.

From sunrise to sunset

I don’t have no other clean shirt.