Blues is like an Egyptian Wall Painting

What? A wall painting? What's Oakroot on about now?

Ever look at an Egyptian painting? Looks like it was drawn by a 4 year old... All the figures are in profile, but their eyes look straight out at you. It's just not realistic.

The Egyptian artist drew each part of a figure from the point of view that showed it best, without respect to realistic perspective. He presented fragmented features of the picture and counted on the viewer's brain to put it back together into something meaningful.

How's that relate to the blues?

Well, it's like this. Blues tells a story, but not in a straight-ahead recitation of events that we're used to.

Let me start with a counter-example... country music.

Here's what a country song looks like:

Verse 1: Everything's just going along fine
Verse 2: But then it all went to Hell in a handbasket
Bridge: I realized some new idea and it totally shook my world.
Verse 3: Now I'm singing exactly the same words as in verse 1, but it has a whole new meaning.

A very clear story, very sequential. You could make a movie by just putting the scenes in order as described in the song. (In fact a lot of country music videos are exactly that.)

Blues is different. Here's what a traditional blues song looks like:

Verse 1: I thought things were good, but they got totally screwed up
Verse 2: Something that has nothing to do with Verse 1 was good but got screwed up, too
Verse 3: Same thing as verse 2, but goes bad in a completely different way
Verse 4: Exactly the opposite of verse 1, but I'm gonna push on anyway.

It's not sequential. The verses may actually contradict each other - in one verse my woman's walking out on me, but in the next, I'm walking out on her. Contradiction... but you know, on an emotional level, that most relationship breakups can be seen in both ways. The contradiction is an illusion because you were focusing on surface facts rather than deep feelings. Blues is a story about the deep feelings.

Blues shows the fragmented features of the story and counts on the listener's brain and heart to put it back together into something meaningful.


Before someone jumps all over me because, I've oversimplified... let me mention that there are blues songs that tell sequential stories. There's very little pure blues and country influences certainly come into it. But even when a blues tells a sequential story, it may show the non-sequential features I talked about and always, it's about the deep feelings of the story - or it just ain't blues.