Song Sung Blue

Sidey’s Weekend Theme is “blue”, so here is Tinman’s guide to one of the most famous of all music genres….

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The first requirement of being a blues singer is that you woke up this morning. Of course, most of us did, but we don’t feel the need to complain about it. Your next problem could be anything – your woman could have left you (the Lovesick Blues) you could have a hangover from last night’s pub-crawl (the 12-Bar Blues) or you might be tired after the walk uphill home (the Hill Street Blues). This problem will form the second line of your song.

In case your audience don’t get it, the first and second lines are then sung again, before the verse ends with one line summing up just how bad the situation is. An example would be “Woke up this mornin’/Found ma woman gone/woke up this mornin’/found ma woman gone/Now I ain’t got no-one/to put ma dinner on.”

It is important to note the use of the word “woman”. As a blues singer you are never left by your girl (that’s boy-bands), your honey (that’s Bobby Goldsboro) or your doll (that’s just weird). You will certainly never be left by your wife, because you won’t have one.

All blues numbers have the same tune. This is a golden rule. The sole optional amendment is that a harmonica, the musical equivalent of nails on a blackboard, is sometimes thrown in, so that the listener’s agony can match that of the singer.

This singer’s name will not be something like, say, Julian. No, blues singers have names like Silly Hair Jones, Bicycle-Pump Wilson or Old Yeller Jackson, who got the name not because he was a terrible singer, but simply because he was an old geezer.

It is the only occupation in which you can call someone “Fats” without them getting offended.

The typical blues singer lives to be about 120, singing night after night about their considerably more than fifty shades of blue.

There is only one thing that they are afraid of, and that is happiness. Nothing can kill a blues career quicker than to wake up one morning, and find that things are good.

Coz there ain’t no cure for the Funtime Blues.