Still Got the Blues For You

A very funny, tongue in cheek, semi serious explanation of the Blues and who can sing and play it and make it work.

One of my all time favorite blues songs is “Still Got the Blues for You” by Gary Moore, who sadly passed away in February of this year while on vacation in Spain. But only three weeks away, the Blues is raging in me. I have uploaded youTube videos from most of the acts playing on the upcoming Amelia Island Blues Festival on my favorite list during the workday. The event is gathering tons of interest from around the Nation, hitting the website Ameliaislandbluesfest.com in unprecedented numbers and when someone sent me a link to the following story I simply had to share it with you. It’s a fun yet serious take on the Blues.

How To Sing The Blues in 20 Easy Lessons:

1. Most Blues begin “Woke up this mornin’…”

2. “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick somethin’ nasty in the nex’ line like, “I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town.”

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find somethin’ that rhymes… sort of: “Got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Yeah, I got a good woman with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher, and she weigh 500 pound.”

4. The Blues is NOT about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch–ain’t no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys, Fords, Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don’t travel in Volvos (well maybe the older ones), BMWs, or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southboun’ train. Jet aircraft and state-sponsored motor pools ain’t even in the runnin’. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.

6. Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain’t fixin’ to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, “adulthood” means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in Minneapolis or Seattle is probably just clinical depression. Chicago, St. Louis, and Kansas City are good places to have the Blues. New Orleans, Memphis, Greenwood, Mobile and Statesboro are even better places to have the Blues cause that’s where Blues was born.
Actually, a dirt farm in the Mississippi delta is the best possible place to have the Blues. You cannot have the blues in any place that don’t get warm rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain’t the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg cause you were skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg ’cause a alligator be chompin’ on it is.

9. You can’t have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is all wrong. Go outside to the parkin’ lot or sit down by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

Bad places for the Blues:
a. Nordstrom’s
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit,’lessn you happen to be an ol’ ethnic person, and you slept in it.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if:
a. you older than dirt
b. you blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can’t be satisfied

No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived
d. you have a 401K or trust fund

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Boxer Sonny Liston could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.
14. If you ask for water and your darlin’ give you gasoline, it’s the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. cheap wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. nasty black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. Perrier
b. Dom Perignon
c. Snapple
d. Slim Fast

15. If death occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it’s a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the ‘lectric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken down cot. You can’t have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or while getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

18. Persons with names like Michelle, Amber, Debbie, and Heather can’t sing the Blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis.

19. Make your own Blues name Starter Kit:
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple, Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit Lemon, Lime, Kiwi,(etc.)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.)

For example: Blind Lime Jefferson, Jakeleg Lemon Johnson or
Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not “Kiwi.”)

20. I don’t care how tragic your life is: if you own even one computer, you should not sing the blues.

So if you want to find out if BLUES and YOU go well together, get your tickets NOW. Click Here.