i'm sorry y'all. i know i'm usually raspberry red with passion and mango sweet with the juicy life enriching goodness. but i've been raspberry blue lately. see, i called in a few favors and rented out a pent house with lions and tigers in cages lined with ghana jerseys. i had my main man diddy bring all his friends over. i had usher give a live performance. i even shanghi'd the entire russian ballet bruce wayne style.now, for what would i go to such lengths for, you ask? you normally wouldn't risk a perfectly manicured finger for anything last than a major international, multicultural phenomenon! well, if you were paying attention (and if you were, here's a cookie!) you would have picked up on the ghana jersey lined animal cages i mentioned earlier. that would have clued you in to the nature of my extravaganza (if you read the title, here's a dollar! so you can buy yourself a cookie!) i got a baaad case of the us-soccer-lost-to-ghana-again-and-is-now-out-of-the-world-cup-...-again blues. where's little walter when you need him? well, despite the fact that no blues artist ever made a song about soccer (well, there IS this nice zydeco infused nawlins offering)yours truly reclaimed his status as the henny topped lemon drop thanks to the uplifting words in this song, and i think our red, white and blue boys just might take comfort in it, too.
Showing posts with label the blues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label the blues. Show all posts
Tuesday, June 29, 2010
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
birth of the blues
They says they was a man
But they ain’t sho’
Don’t nobody know what was this mans home
He don’t got a mama o’ a pappy
Aun brutha o’ sista
Alls he got’s his gitar and a his saaaad sad song
His balls and his word
But dontcha go on aksin him
Cuz he wont tell
Lawd jesus could he play
Eva note the tears o’ the devil
Let me tell it the devil his self
They say he wont born
He like not to eva’ exist
Nary a picture of him ‘round
They say he was come to the cross roads
Full grown, a go’geus black man
Lands a’mighty he shone like wood fire
Beside this man was a gitar carved from
Black oak with strangs a’gold
He git up and looked
Left, was desert, right was a forest
Trees fulla that there
Strange fruit
And ahead was blacker than the heart
That made him
So black ya couldn’t see ya eyes close
And it was sweet as revenge
They say they was a road yonder
Plain as day it shone through that darkness
And it was anotha’n run ‘cross it
He aint know why or what, but he know
He gotta cross that road
And there he go, holdin’ fast to
His flesh bound book
Skin was white as snow in the moonlight
Eyes burned like whip ‘cross yo back
With the finest zoot suit yo’ eyes did see
He was beautiful
And this man called to that butha
And told him he would change the world
If he would give up his soul
If’n he he was a man ‘fore this
He might’na knowed what’d happen
But he wasn’t
He was newborn, green, a lil’ sapplin
And this here beautiful man was a full tit
Offerin’ him the great I am
The world for a soul and a suck
This man they say look at his gitar
Then he look at the snow white stranga’
He say he’d give anythin’ a make that
black and gold moan
And he prick his own fanga
And sign his name in that stranga’s book
Not even ‘fore the blood dry
This here wood fired man o’ ash and coal
Strum them strangs
And sounds man aint neva know poured out
The tears o’ the devil
They say that strange fruit jump down
from the tree, and move like
Like this man plucked Gawd’s breath outta that
Gitar
man look around for the stranga
But he was gone
Nuthin but the smell o’ sulfur and burnin’ flesh
Left behind
And a note that say
“See ya’ in 27 years my boy”
So he was born
Black man sho’ nuff like no other
And ever act to come there afta’
Would know the name
O’ Robert Johnson
But they ain’t sho’
Don’t nobody know what was this mans home
He don’t got a mama o’ a pappy
Aun brutha o’ sista
Alls he got’s his gitar and a his saaaad sad song
His balls and his word
But dontcha go on aksin him
Cuz he wont tell
Lawd jesus could he play
Eva note the tears o’ the devil
Let me tell it the devil his self
They say he wont born
He like not to eva’ exist
Nary a picture of him ‘round
They say he was come to the cross roads
Full grown, a go’geus black man
Lands a’mighty he shone like wood fire
Beside this man was a gitar carved from
Black oak with strangs a’gold
He git up and looked
Left, was desert, right was a forest
Trees fulla that there
Strange fruit
And ahead was blacker than the heart
That made him
So black ya couldn’t see ya eyes close
And it was sweet as revenge
They say they was a road yonder
Plain as day it shone through that darkness
And it was anotha’n run ‘cross it
He aint know why or what, but he know
He gotta cross that road
And there he go, holdin’ fast to
His flesh bound book
Skin was white as snow in the moonlight
Eyes burned like whip ‘cross yo back
With the finest zoot suit yo’ eyes did see
He was beautiful
And this man called to that butha
And told him he would change the world
If he would give up his soul
If’n he he was a man ‘fore this
He might’na knowed what’d happen
But he wasn’t
He was newborn, green, a lil’ sapplin
And this here beautiful man was a full tit
Offerin’ him the great I am
The world for a soul and a suck
This man they say look at his gitar
Then he look at the snow white stranga’
He say he’d give anythin’ a make that
black and gold moan
And he prick his own fanga
And sign his name in that stranga’s book
Not even ‘fore the blood dry
This here wood fired man o’ ash and coal
Strum them strangs
And sounds man aint neva know poured out
The tears o’ the devil
They say that strange fruit jump down
from the tree, and move like
Like this man plucked Gawd’s breath outta that
Gitar
man look around for the stranga
But he was gone
Nuthin but the smell o’ sulfur and burnin’ flesh
Left behind
And a note that say
“See ya’ in 27 years my boy”
So he was born
Black man sho’ nuff like no other
And ever act to come there afta’
Would know the name
O’ Robert Johnson
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