a line from 'The Worried Blues'

Subject: RE: a line from 'The Worried Blues'
From: redhorse
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 12:53 PM

Doc Watson uses it in "Weary Blues"
nick

Subject: RE: a line from 'The Worried Blues'
From: GUEST,Hootenanny
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 12:34 PM

Surely this is one of those floating verses that turns up numerous times in various songs and by various artisits.Like all folk song it isn't possible to say which is the correct or incorrect wording as there is no correct wording.The first one that comes to my mind is:

Some folks say that the worried blues ain't
Well it must not have been them old worried blues they had

Again only a slight variation, there are dozens or more.

A blues line that I am particularly fond of is:


If it wasn't for bad luck I wouldn't have no luck at all


Just about sums things up in one line.

Subject: RE: a line from 'The Worried Blues'
From: PoppaGator
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 12:22 PM

Can't offer an artist or a particular rendition, but isn't it actually:

"Must not have been the worried blues *I* had"

??

You're right -- this is a great expression of the best kind of black-humorous world-weary hard-core realism expressed in the blues.

Subject: RE: a line from 'The Worried Blues'
From: Roger the Skiffler
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 09:28 AM

Similar line only substituting "Walking" for "Worried" in Robert Johnson's "Walkin' Blues".
RtS

Subject: a line from 'The Worried Blues'
From: clueless don
Date: 06 Oct 04 - 09:25 AM

Years upon years ago, when I was a graduate student, I happened to hear a singer (probably a student as well) singing "The Worried Blues". I was struck by one particular line in his rendition:

I heard someone say that the worried blues ain't bad.
It must not have been the worried blues he had.

I love this line!

Now, I have not made a systematic study of renditions of The Worried Blues. But I have heard it (in one form or the other) sung a number of times over the years, and I have never heard this particular line repeated. The closest I have heard is "I heard someone say that the worried blues ain't bad. It's the worst old feeling that I've ever had." The DT version of "Worried Blues" doesn't even have this line.

Has anyone ever heard this particular line (in The Worried Blues or anywhere else)? I'm beginning to wonder if it wasn't a creation of the particular singer I heard that day.

Don