Subject: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Rapparee Date: 16 Jun 04 - 08:27 AM This was sent from Gene Spafford's "Yucks." Don't know if it's been at the 'Cat before, 'cause the search doesn't seem to be working. -------- HOW TO SING THE BLUES 1. Most blues begin "woke up this morning." 2. "I got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line. "I got a good woman with the meanest dog in town." 3. Blues are simple. After you have the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes. Sort of. "Got a good woman with the meanest dog in town. He got teeth like Margaret Thatcher and he weighs about 500 pounds." 4. The blues are not about limitless choice. Blues cars are Chevies and Cadillacs. Other acceptable blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Walkin' plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die. 6. 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. 7. 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 and Kansas City are still the best places to have the blues. 8.The following colors do not belong in the blues: a. violet b. beige c. mauve 9. You can't have the blues in an office or a shopping mall, the lighting is wrong. 10. Good places for the Blues: a. the highway b. the jailhouse c. the empty bed Bad places: a. Ashrams b. Gallery openings c. weekend in the Hamptons 11. No one will believe it's the blues if you wear a suit, unless you happen to be an old black man. 12. Do you have the right to sing the blues? Yes, if: a. your first name is a southern state, like Georgia b. you're blind c. you shot a man in Memphis. d. you can't be satisfied. No, if: a. you were once blind but now can see. b. you're deaf c. you have a trust fund. 13. Neither Julio Iglesias nor Barbara Streisand can sing the blues. 14. If you ask for water and your baby gives you gasoline, it's the blues. Other blues beverages are: a. wine b. Irish whiskey Blues beverages are NOT: a. Any mixed drink b. Any wine kosher for Passover c. Yoo Hoo (all flavors) 15. 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. So is the electric chair, substance abuse or being denied treatment in an emergency room. It is not a blues death if you die during a liposuction treatment. 16. Some Blues names for Women a. Sadie b. Big Mama c. Bessie 17. Some Blues Names for Men a. Joe b. Willie c. Little Willie d. Lightning Persons with names like Sierra or Sequoia will not be permitted to sing the blues no matter how many men they shoot in Memphis. 17B. Other Blues Names (Starter Kit) a. Name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple. Ugly) b. First name (see above) or name of fruit (Lemon, Lime, Kiwi) c. Last Name of President (Jefferson, Johnson, Fillmore, etc.) |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: s6k Date: 16 Jun 04 - 08:32 AM RE: 7 surely mississippi is the best place to have the blues! |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: mooman Date: 16 Jun 04 - 08:35 AM I've seen a version of this here before. I think I qualify... Can I be Longsighted Gooseberry Bush? Peace moo |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: el ted Date: 16 Jun 04 - 08:47 AM 17B is hilarious! how about - Incontinent Plums Washington as a blues name? |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Bobert Date: 16 Jun 04 - 08:49 AM LOL, Rapster. Even thou I've seen something similar it's always purdy funny. Someone definately needs to do one on bluegrass and another on pop country. Bobert (Alias "Sidewalk Bob", bluesman...) |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: GUEST,Long tall yalla girl Date: 16 Jun 04 - 08:51 AM Doctor, Fats or Leadsomething. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: GUEST,KB Date: 16 Jun 04 - 08:56 AM baggsie be Squinting Quince Lincoln |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Rapparee Date: 16 Jun 04 - 09:06 AM I've seen something like the before too, but I thought I'd share anyway. I'm thinking of Strabismic Ugli Polk, myself. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Nick Date: 16 Jun 04 - 09:39 AM From henceforth the above named wishes to be known as Clubfoot Fig Hoover |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: el ted Date: 16 Jun 04 - 09:41 AM You should be called - Smock Wearing Plonker! |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: JennyO Date: 16 Jun 04 - 09:41 AM Limping Lilli Pilli Lincoln |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Jeanie Date: 16 Jun 04 - 09:58 AM Great names ! When we did this here a few years ago, the Blues Women made their names from: an aristocratic/royal title and/or a flower, plus a female's name from the Bible....so..... giving it my all on piano, here's (Princess) Passionflower Avishag ... and a one two three four... (I really have just started learning to play blues piano ! With my new name I'll be really going places....) |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: mooman Date: 16 Jun 04 - 09:59 AM ...or maybe Hypertensive Kumquat Johnson... Peace moo |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Amos Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:04 AM PeterT started a hilarious thread on this theme, in which this article can also be found, several years ago, if memory serves. A |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Rapparee Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:06 AM Tried to search the Forum and DT archives before I posted, but the Supersearch engine wasn't working.... |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Tracey Dragonsfriend Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:58 AM Hmmm.... Arthritic Gooseberry Nixon? Cheers Tracey Dragonsfriend Scorch's Pyrography |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Nick Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:01 AM >>Great names ! When we did this here a few years ago, the Blues Women made their names from: an aristocratic/royal title and/or a flower, plus a female's name from the Bible....so..... Would that be a little like generating porn star names by putting together your mother's maiden name with the name of your first pet? |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: mooman Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:34 AM I like that Nick... That would make me... Mullarkey Ginger Peace moo |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Nick Date: 16 Jun 04 - 12:19 PM Hazell Dasher for me which also has a certain charm |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Amos Date: 16 Jun 04 - 12:59 PM There are at least two threads, perhaps more, with this in it, or similar: How to Create a Folksong (FS for Dummies) (Side-splitting) Songwriting (See the post by BSeed of 14 Oct 98. Always room for more, though! A |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Stilly River Sage Date: 16 Jun 04 - 02:42 PM Crotchety Cupuacu Cleveland http://www.crfg.org/pubs/fl/commonAC.html |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: HuwG Date: 16 Jun 04 - 05:57 PM This venerable piece of blues lore appeared in a thread with some other time-honoured blues jokes: The Dyslexic Blues Guitarist Do any UK 'Catters recall the advertisement for Carling Black Label lager about ten years ago, which sent up the Blues ? "Woke up this morning The sun shine down on me Shit, man, that ain't the blues neither!" |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: GUEST,Tinea Tangerine Taft Date: 16 Jun 04 - 07:36 PM Goin' down |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: GUEST,Tinea-Toed Tangerine Taft Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:27 PM I'm goin' back to Aspen In my Tarrago seven-seater. I'm lonesome, blue, an' freezin' cold. I'd best turn on the heater. I got more blues than any man on my five-stack CD player I'm goin' back to Aspen I bin holidayin' down on the bayeau. I'm goin' back to Aspen, you'll be glad to see the back o' me. I'm goin' back to Aspen t' drown my blues in banana daiquiri. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Bill D Date: 17 Jun 04 - 11:57 AM first off, you gotta KNOW what it means to be blue.... |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Jim Dixon Date: 17 Jun 04 - 03:01 PM Yeah, HOW TO SING THE BLUES has been posted here a few times: 21 Aug 1997 26 Nov 1997 14 Oct 1998 08 Jan 1999 23 Jul 1999 25 Nov 1999 28 Mar 2000 22 Jan 2001 09 Apr 2001 30 Aug 2001 30 Aug 2001 And that doesn't count the ones who only posted links to other sites, or links to previous threads… Without the search function, you wouldn't have found ALL of those threads, but you would have found FIVE of them if you had only used the FILTER to search for "How to Sing the Blues." I'm still waiting for a true folklorist to come along and make a detailed comparison of all those versions, to see how the joke has evolved. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Bill D Date: 17 Jun 04 - 04:14 PM ...and I'd hate to list all the times "How to search before you post" has been posted. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: GUEST,John O'Lennaine Date: 17 Jun 04 - 07:34 PM Just because it's been discussed before doesn't mean it should never be discussed again, does it? Sure there's a huge database here, but there's also a discussion forum. John |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Joe Offer Date: 17 Jun 04 - 08:41 PM Well, John, it's a good idea to look whenever you post something from another source. If it's lyrics, search first, then post in the appropriate thread. If it's a list of something you got in the e-mail or saw on the Internet, chances are that somebody else found it and posted it, too. Otherwise, we end up being a bunch of people who throw copy-pastes at each other, rarely stopping to think or to actually communicate - maybe like a steady diet of television reruns. Discussion is one thing - posting things from other sources should require a search first. -Joe Offer- |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Rapparee Date: 17 Jun 04 - 09:53 PM Yeah, and as I said initially and again later, I searched for it and the search engine wasn't working. Not working. I got the response "Supersearch is not available" or words very close to that. Had the search engine been working I wouldn't have posted it. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Jim Dixon Date: 18 Jun 04 - 01:40 AM There is also such a thing as a FILTER, which is quite different and separate from the SEARCH, and it works even when the search doesn't work. It also would have worked to find 5 threads, as I pointed out in my previous post. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: GUEST,freda in dungog Date: 18 Jun 04 - 03:33 AM Just because it's been discussed before doesn't mean it should never be discussed again, does it? history is all about people re inventing the wheel - and each time, that wheel is slightly different. if youre looking as someone who has to organise the threads, yes, you want epople to check first. but if you like reading people's funny ideas - KEEP REINVENTING! (sorry joe) |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Joe_F Date: 18 Jun 04 - 07:21 PM Here are two pseudo blueses, utterly outside the canon, that I wrote a while ago. One is inspired by neurosis, the other by statistical mechanics. ABSTRACT HORNY BLUES (1973) standing on the porch at dawn watching people's lights go on wondering who's in bed there thinking why in hell should i care they can go blow a fuse i've got those abstract horny blues some people first thing in the day look down their belly and pray me when i go out to piss i think what is all this it's only meant to amuse i've got those abstract horny blues if i cared only for you you'd be afraid i'd be true but i don't care who you may be so why should you care if it's me i've got no self to abuse i've got those abstract horny blues i don't have the blues for fun but when all is said and done as long as you never go far at least you know where you are i've got a lot to lose i've got those abstract horny blues * DEGREE-OF-FREEDOM BLUES (1978) What makes the mist boil off the street? What makes big molecules soak up more heat? Just that they can do it -- they don't have to choose. They've got those everloving degree-of-freedom blues. Why isn't the sky solid white with stars? Why don't you see much from Jupiter to Mars? There's lots of space for losing what you have to lose. Just don't let it give you those degree-of-freedom blues. Energy is everything -- so some people say, but entropy has got the keys and trucks it all away. Everything is plenty -- more than we can use, but most of it is down with those degree-of-freedom blues. We may get TV signals from deep in outer space, and funny, long-dead faces may stare us in the face. If they look a little green, that won't be news. That's just your dopplered-down degree-of-freedom blues. There are more words than you can ever say, more stars and people than ever come your way. You ignore the billions to learn the ones and twos. Open up your ears to those degree-of-freedom blues. Once love was stuck in cylinders and pulled creation's train, but now, if you believe it, it's falling with the rain. Love is free to cover whatever may amuse. I think I hear love drumming those degree-of-freedom blues. Ropes knot and snarl if you just let them be. No river runs straight down to the sea. Crooked ways are billions; straight ways, ones and twos. All the worms are singing those degree-of-freedom blues. We send our whores banging thru the sky; we keep on building bombs as if we'd like to die -- just cause we can do it (costs too much to choose). That's what's got me singing those degree-of-freedom blues. You can run a rocky road balancing a pole, but you can't run with water and keep it in the bowl. What you've got to run with has still more ways to lose, and what you've got to live with is degree-of-freedom blues. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Liz the Squeak Date: 19 Jun 04 - 07:14 AM Hmmm.. that makes me Arrhythmic Tomato Palmerston (Being a Yooker, I thought I'd substitute a British politician rather than a president). LTS |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: alanabit Date: 20 Jun 04 - 04:53 AM I used to play in a duo with my good friend Pete Oswald, who comes from Houston, Texas. I reckon "Texas Pete Oswald" sounds great. "Callington Alan Moorhouse" doesn't have the same ring about it! |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: kendall Date: 13 Apr 10 - 12:16 PM worth refreshing |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Bobert Date: 13 Apr 10 - 07:24 PM Well, well, well... I'd have to admit that I had forgotten all about this thread... But then again, I've forgotten alot of things but... ...I've been kinda lucky... Yeah, my voice ain't what it once was which ofr sionging the blues is a good thing... Yeah, it's kinda like an old "tube-amp"... Alot like Kendall's but with a little more volume... But that's the blues... I waited all my life for my voice to go into the crapper so I could sound like alot of my heros... I mean, let's face it... If you were to walk into a juke joint and Son House was on the juke-box I doubt if anyone would ask if that was Vince Gill singin'... Know what I mean??? Yeah, there are a few perks that come with age and being able to sing the blues correctly is one of them... Well, that's my thinkin', anyway... B~ |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Rapparee Date: 13 Apr 10 - 08:21 PM Heck, I'd forgotten this too. Bobert, who is Son House? Is he related to Sonny Terry of the Terry cloth fortune? Is Brownie Magee a young Girl Scout? If Sidewalk Bob goes to an airport and gets on one of those people-moving conveyor belts is he Slidewalk Bob? Wait, I know: Son House is related to Rising Sun House, probably they're twins! Man, do I know about the blues! |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: GUEST,Wesley S Date: 13 Apr 10 - 08:28 PM For a raspy blues voice - no one beats Howlin' Wolf. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Bobert Date: 13 Apr 10 - 08:31 PM I donno, Wes-S... Wolf had that falseto thing goin' was way better than his rasp... Okay, the rasp was right up there but... |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: HuwG Date: 13 Apr 10 - 11:12 PM Found after many years ... Heiniken blues advert, 1990 ... and its sequel Heiniken is or was an undistinguished cooking lager, but its advertisers were touched by genius. |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: MGM·Lion Date: 14 Apr 10 - 06:41 AM ===Would that be a little like generating porn star names by putting together your mother's maiden name with the name of your first pet? === So ~~ Schneiderman Sally?? Hmm: might work! BTW ~~ why this a BS thread anyhow? Puzzled... ~Michael~ |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: Bobert Date: 14 Apr 10 - 08:11 AM It's below the line because it's a dreaded "blues" thread... They are alot safer down here than up top where they soon get pushed down to the bottom by the endless shanty sing bully threads... B~ |
Subject: RE: BS: How To Sing The Blues From: MGM·Lion Date: 14 Apr 10 - 10:08 AM Who 'dreads' blues threads? Any-ole-how, weren't the Blues the original inspiration & begetter of Mudcat in the first place ~~ whence the somewhat eccentric Mississippi·piscine name? ~M~ |
Subject: RE: How To Sing The Blues From: GUEST,Wally Macnow Date: 14 Apr 10 - 11:36 AM I had a friend who would occasionally sing under the name or Blind Dead Thumbpick. Also Puce works as a blues color as in When that light, it turns puce You figure what the hell's the use from "Relax Your Mind" |
Subject: RE: How To Sing The Blues From: Dave MacKenzie Date: 14 Apr 10 - 11:44 AM I used to get away with "Hamfist" Dave MacKenzie. And surely any colour can be a Blues colour if you can fit it into "Cocaine" - remeber what Bob Dylan did to purple. |
Subject: RE: How To Sing The Blues From: PoppaGator Date: 14 Apr 10 - 02:08 PM Did this just get moved UP and out of the BS section? If so, bravo! |
Share Thread: |
Subject: | Help |
From: | |
Preview Automatic Linebreaks Make a link ("blue clicky") |