Blues rules
Use this guide to write an authentic blues song (or to tell if the Bessie Smith Strut entertainers are authentic blues artists):
- Most blues songs begin “Woke up this morning.”
- “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line.
Example: I got a good woman / with the meanest dog in town.
- Blues are simple. After you have the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes. Sort of.
Example: I got a good woman / with the meanest dog in town. / He got teeth like Margaret Thatcher / and he weighs 500 pounds.
- The blues are not about limitless choice, investments, golden parachutes, BMWs, opera or environmental impact statements.
- Blues cars are Chevies and Cadillacs. Other acceptable blues transportation is Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.
- Teenagers can’t sing the blues. Adults sing the blues. Blues adulthood means old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.
- You can have the blues in New York City, but not in Brooklyn or Queens. Hard times in Vermont or North Dakota are just a depression. Chicago, St. Louis, Austin and Kansas City still are the best places to have the blues.
- The following colors do not belong in the blues: violet, beige, mauve, taupe.
- You can’t have the blues in an office or a shopping mall – the lighting is wrong.
- Good places for the blues: the highway, the jailhouse, an empty bed.
- Bad places: yoga ashrams, gallery openings, weekends in the Hamptons, Trump Plaza.
- No one will believe it’s the blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old black man.
- You can sing the blues if: your first name is a Southern state, like Georgia; you’re blind; you shot a man in Memphis (see exception below); your woman can’t be satisfied.
- You cannot sing the blues if: you were once blind but now can see; you have a trust fund; you hold elected office; your woman CAN be satisfied.
- Neither Julio Iglesias nor Barbara Streisand can sing the blues.
- If you ask for water and baby gives you gasoline, it’s the blues. Other blues beverages are: cheap wine, Irish whiskey, muddy water.
- Blues beverages are not: any mixed drink; any wine kosher for Passover; Yoo Hoo (all flavors).
- If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a blues death.
- Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is a blues way to die. Other blues ways to die include: the electric chair, substance abuse, being denied treatment in an emergency room.
- It is not a blues death if you die during a liposuction treatment.
- Some blues names for women: Sadie, Big Mama, Bessie.
- Some blues names for men: Joe, Willie, Little Willie, Lightning.
- People with names like Sierra or Sequoia will not be permitted to sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.
Musical riddles