Despite being popular for much of history, moustaches are now the style equivalent of wearing parachute pants on your upper lip. Thankfully, a few segments of the population continue to brandish their push brooms with pride.
Wednesday, July 29, 2009
Wednesday, July 15, 2009
Your grandparents are full of shit. What they don’t mention as they grumble about the rap music destroying civilization, was that the blues they were listening to in the 30s and 40s could be every bit as violent, sexually explicit and sometimes just downright insane as the worst gansta rap has to offer. Compared to some of these vintage lyrics the members of N.W.A are levelheaded concerned citizens, and Eminem’s a regular feminist.
“22-20 Blues” by Skip James
“22-20 Blues” tells the tale of a woman who just won’t get her act straight. See, Skip James sent for her, on several occasions, and yet she didn’t show up! The brazen audacity! Of course in the world of blues there’s only one way to deal with minor punctuality issues – murder.
A Few Choice Quotes
An she act like she just don't wanna do
Sometimes she gets unruly
An she act like she just don't wanna do
But I get my 22-20
I cut that woman half in two
Oh, your.38 Special
Buddy, it's most too light
Your .38 Special
Buddy, it's most too light
But my 22-20
Will make ev'rything, alright
Shooting your woman with a mere .38 pistol? That’s for pussies. Ironically James soon found himself humbled when Robert Johnson recorded a far more popular version of his song. The only real change Johnson made? He upped the calibre and named it the “32-20 Blues”. It was all about the gun size with those boys.
“If You’se a Viper” by Stuff Smith
More than a few rappers have based their careers on professing their affection for certain smokeable substances, a proud tradition that dates back to jazz and blues from as early as the 1920s. Apparently one of the worst side effects of pot is smokers’ inability to stop writing songs about it.
A Few Choice Quotes
Not too fat and not too strong
Come on now, 5-feet? That’s just impractical.
And you know you're high
Everything is dandy
Truck on down to your candy store
Get you kicks off peppermint candy
Peppermint candy? The munchies sucked in the pre-Doritos era.
“Whoopee Blues” by King Solomon Hill
Another song about a poor blues man having to deal with a mean mistreating woman. King Solomon Hill isn’t one to settle for mere murder though, he wants his woman sent to hell to do it with the Devil, which strikes us as just a tad judgemental. We’re no theologians, but we’re pretty sure slashing your girlfriend to death with a razor is pretty much a one-way ticket to becoming Satan’s bitch.
A Few Choice Quotes
Tell me you been gone all day, that you may make whoopee all night
I'm gonna take my razor and cut your late hours,
You wouldn't think I'd be servin' you right
Undertaker been here and gone, I gave him your height and seize
I said, Undertaker been here and gone, I gave him your height and seize
You be makin' whoopee with the devil in hell tomorrow night
Apparently undertakers didn’t ask a whole lot of questions back then.
Baby, you done made me love you, now I got me for your slave
From now you'll be makin' whoopee, deep in your lonesome grave
Ahhh, now we see. He did it because he cared too much!
“Mad Mama Blues” by Josie Miles
Obviously violence against women was a bit of an unfortunate theme of early blues, but as Josie Miles shows, female blues singers didn’t shrink from a bit of insane violence either. Josie doesn’t even need a reason, in “Mad Mama Blues” she’s out to wreck the city like Godzilla in a cocktail dress and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
A Few Choice Quotes
Through the streets
Now I could see blood runnin’
Through the streets
Could be everyone
Layin’ dead right right at my feet.
“Hello?! 9-11? Quick! You have to…oh God, she’s coming!”
Give me dynamite
Give me gunpowder
Give me dynamite
Yes I’d wreck the city
Wanna blow it up tonight
“It’s Josie Miles!”
Down off the shelf
I took my big Winchester
Down off the shelf
When I get through shootin’
There won’t be nobody left
“Send the police! The national guard! Before it’s too…arrrraaghaghh!”
“Shave ‘Em Dry” by Lucille Bogan
Looking at a picture of Lucille Bogan it’s easy to imagine her as the motherly type, making breakfast and scolding you for your dirty mouth, but in reality beneath the modest exterior was the queen of the “dirty blues”, and the writer of such classics as “Sloppy Drunk Blues”, “Tricks Ain’t Walkin’ No More” and the “Bull Dyke Women’s Blues”.
Her most infamous song was “Shave ‘Em Dry”, a 3-minute ode to her own humping prowess so filthy it would Lil’ Kim blush.
A Few Choice Quotes
I got somethin’ between my legs’ll make a dead man come
You know it’s a good song when the first two lines reference necrophilia and thumb-sized nipples.
And I feel just like I wanna, fuck some more
You know how people ask which dead celebrity you’d like to meet if you could? We submit Lucille Bogan for your consideration.
And your dick stands up like a steeple,
Your goddamn asshole stands open like a church door,
And the crabs walks in like people.
Er, actually we take that back.
“Butcher Pete” by Roy Brown
So, there were plenty of old blues songs that were either horrifically violent, or sexually explicit, but Roy Brown wasn’t a man to be satisfied with just one or the other. His song “Butcher Pete” is about a guy who goes around the countryside “chopping up all the women’s meat” with his “long sharp knife”. Get it? This is a rare example where hiding the sexual content behind double entendres and innuendo somehow made the song a thousand times more offensive.
A Few Choice Quotes
He's been havin' a ball
Just cuttin' and choppin' for miles around
Single women, married women, old maids and all
It’s nice to know Butcher Pete doesn’t discriminate. Old maids need chopping too.
Yes, he finally met his faith
But when they came to pay his bail
They found him choppin' up his cellmate
Whoa whoa, wait. Chopping up his cellmate? Come on blues guys, you already beat rap to the punch when it comes to horrifying violence and misogyny, do you have to claim suspiciously gay lyrics too?
“A to Z Blues” by Blind Willie McTell
From Ray Charles to Stevie Wonder, the list of beloved blind performers is a long one, but as Blind Willie McTell proves, not all blind musicians are quite so cuddly.
At first the “A to Z Blues” seems to be a standard “my woman done me wrong” blues song, but then Blind Willie goes and gets creative. The result is a song that sounds like something that might have been created had Sesame Street ever been visited by Charlie Manson.
A Few Choice Quotes
That’s long, short, deep and wide.
Cutting heads is a lost art. Most kids today would probably know 2 different ways max.
you’re gonna be booked out for an ambulance ride.
Cause I’m gonna cut A, B, C, D on top of your head
That’s gonna be treating you nice like mama you ain’t gonna be dead.
Keeping someone alive as you slowly carve the alphabet into them is one of the more liberal definitions of “nice” we’ve heard. Wait, why are you backing away? We still have 22 more letters to go!
H, I, J, K, that’s where runnin’ bound to take place.
Cut L, M, N cross both your arms.
You’ll sell an’ peddle gal your whole life long.
Cut N, O, P, Q that’s gonna be trouble too
Cause I’m gonna grab you mama and turn you every way but loose.
Cut R, S, T to hear you cry
That’ll be the last time tears a run from over your eyes.
Cut U, V, W on the bottom of your feet.
That’ll be the last time you walk up an’ down 25th street.
Marking cross your bosom with X, Y, Z
When I get through with this alphabet
You’ll quit your messing with me.
Blind Willie’s dedication to educating as he horrifies is nothing short of inspirational really.
Nathan Birch also writes the not at all gangsta webcomic Zoology.
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