Intro: Blues up ahead

Why I'm on Substack singing the blues

Photo by sebastiaan stam on Unsplash

You’re getting this newsletter because you love the blues. I love it too. One of my favorite blues songs is “Trouble in Mind,” the Sister Rosetta Tharpe version. It captures everything great about the genre; it’s all there in the words and the way Sister Rosetta sings them. There’s something compelling about hearing, rendered in pristine gospel tones, lyrics that veer away from the hopeful spirit of Sunday morning:

I'm gonna lay my head
On some lonesome railroad line
And let that 2:19 train
Pacify my mind

Trouble in mind, I'm so blue
I've almost lost my mind
Sometimes I feel like living
And sometimes I feel like dying

The song affirms “that sun will shine / In my backdoor someday,” but it’s that 2:19 train that sticks in the head. It’s a lyric every bit as heavy as “I shot a man in Reno just to watch him die” and Hank Williams going down in that river three times but only coming up twice.

It seems like that train was running through Tom Waits’ head when he wrote his song “2:19.” It’s from the era when Waits’ voice had just about completed its transition into the bastard son of Howlin’ Wolf and Captain Beefheart. It’s a “my-baby’s-leaving” tune, and her mode of transportation is familiar:

I lost everything I had in the '29 flood
The barn was buried 'neath a mile of mud
Now I've got nothing but the whistle and the steam
My baby's leaving on the 2:19

Now there's a fellow that's preaching 'bout hell and damnation
Bouncing off the walls in the Grand Central Station
I treated her bad, I treated her mean
My baby's leaving on the 2:19

I said hey, hey, I don't know what to do
Hey, hey, I will remember you
Hey, hey, I don't know what to do
My baby's leaving on the 2:19

It’s deliciously cheeky—his baby being carried out of town by the same train that pacifies minds lying on lonesome railroad lines. It’s dark, it’s outrageous, it’s all the comedy and tragedy of the blues.

When I was a kid, my dad gave me his old copy of The Complete Works of Shakespeare, another place where comedy and tragedy can be found. I barely understood the words, but I loved how they sounded. They were a new kind of music, with their own propulsive logic, conveying depths of feeling alien to my experience, but captivating nonetheless.

I got into blues the same way—for love of the sound. Just as I didn’t understand much of what Hamlet was saying, I initially didn’t understand the idioms and lively expressions in blues (“Break in on a dollar most anywhere she goes” means what, exactly?). But the sound kept me listening. Later, I learned to more fully appreciate the lyrics. Robert Johnson singing about the land of California. Son House not knowing he loved her until he let her down. Willie Dixon making his midnight creep. And, of course, that 2:19 train. Such lyrics are the timbers on which the whole edifice of American music is built. They also inspired me to write my own blues songs. Like:

She might fly to Texas
Might land in LA
She might fly to Texas
Might land in LA
Don’t know where she’s goin’
But she’s gone today

Got her bags all packed
And she’s waitin’ at the gate
Got her bags all packed 
And she’s waitin’ at the gate
Been a long time since
My love could make her late

Used to be
We both were flying high
Used to be
We both were flying high
Now I’m down here 
While she’s up in the sky

And:

You’ll find me on the road, babe
You know I live from here to there
You’ll find me on the road, babe
You know I live from here to there
I just can’t stay with you
When I could be anywhere

I’ve been through Kansas City
I’ve been through San Antone
I’ve been through Kansas City
I’ve been through San Antone
Been through with pretty women
Been happy all alone

I wasn’t born to keep you
Wasn’t born to stick around
I wasn’t born to keep you
Wasn’t born to stick around
I’ll get where I’m going
No matter where I’m bound

I think we’re on the cusp of a blues renaissance. We get them every few decades or so. There was one in the 60s, one in the 80s, and there’s one, I think, coming into view now. On YouTube, Gen Z-ers are making videos on how to play like John Lee Hooker and RL Burnside. On stages across the world, new players like Christone “Kingfish” Ingram are taking the genre in exciting new directions. In the public consciousness there’s a growing sense—can you feel it?—that history is, fundamentally, a blues song. Blues can help us make sense of the moment we’re in. We learn from the resilience of the music and the genius of its great practitioners how to get through hard times with our hopes intact.

My goal is to make this Substack an online community center for all things blues. For now, I’ll be sending lyrics, along with musings on blues both contemporary and historical. Someday, I hope to offer a podcast, and maybe even produce original music in partnership with readers. Drop me a line if you want to collaborate on some songs! I’ll happily write lyrics for anyone who asks. I’d also love to hear about any goings-on in the blues world you think readers would like to know about. Are you hosting a music festival? Do you publish a blues newsletter and want to spread the word about it? Are you a musician looking to promote your work? Let me know and I’ll share it here.

In the immortal film Adventures in Babysitting, Albert Collins says “Nobody leaves this place without singing the blues.” That line could apply to life in general as much as it does to the gritty Chicago club where it’s delivered. This newsletter is my effort to sing the blues the best way I know how: through lyrics, essays, and engagement with the wider world of people who love this music. I hope you’ll sing with me.

Yours in blues,
Hangnail Slim