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HOW JAZZ DEVELOPED 13
Any later-day listener who may be shocked by such sentiments should reflect on the philosophy of the Threepenny Opera: "Full bellies come first, and morals later." Studying the following chapter of this book, and reflecting on the conditions of negro slavery, we may thank our lucky stars that we live in a featherbed society where most of us can well afford to be "nice".
The Blues
It is in the Blues that we meet the most moving expression of the negro's music for living. Eating, sleeping, breeding, fighting—all these activities are expressed with a philosophic melancholy and acceptance of the slave's lot.
The texts of Blues songs are not "literary" lyrics. They are cast in a simple form: a crude and direct statement of some elemental trouble or sorrow, the repetition of that statement (to let the idea sink in), and a third line that comments on or develops the stated problem.
The Blues deal with desperate means of earning a living:
I can't use no woman ef she don' help me
rob an' steal, I can't use no woman ef she don' help me
rob an' steal, Wake up early in the mornin', can't
eat a decent meal. |
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