ON THE TRAIL OF NEGRO FOLK-SONGS

A Collection Of Negro Traditional & Folk Songs with Sheet Music Lyrics & Commentaries - online book

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	BLUES	273
	The Texas Negroes are especially fond of blues, and have, as I have said, been singing them for years, before Handy made them popular in print. W. P. Webb published, some years ago, in an art­icle in the Journal of American Folk-lore, what he called a sort of epic of the Negro, in effect a long specimen of blues, which the singer called Railroad Blues, which stuck to no one subject, even so popular a one as a railroad, but left the track to discuss many phases of life. Fragments of blues float in from every side, expressive of all con­ceivable aspects of the Negro's existence, economic, social, domestic, romantic, and so forth. Morton Adams Marshall sends an admirable specimen from Little Rock, Arkansas, — which, however, was taken down in southern Louisiana, — reflecting one black man's bewilderment over the problems of love.
	DON' CHER LOOK AT ME, CALINE!
	Don' cher look at me, Ca'line, Don' cher look at me! You done busted up many a po' niggah's haht, But you ain't a-goin' to bust up mine I Oh, it's hahd to love, An' it's mighty hahd to leave, But it's hahder to make up yo' mi-ind! A fragment sent by Mrs. Cammilla Breazeale, of Louisiana, ex­presses an extreme case of depression, without assigning any cause for it.