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180 NEGRO FOLK-SONGS
Jack o' Diamonds, Jack o' Diamonds, Jack o' Diamonds is a hard card to roll.
Says, whenever I gets in jail, Jack o' Diamonds goes my bail; And I never, Lord, I never, Lord, I never was so hard up before.
You may work me in the winter,
You may work me in the fall;
Til get even, I'll get even,
Til get even through that long summer's day.
Jack o' Diamonds took my money, And the piker got my clothes; And I ne-ever, and I ne-ever, Lord, I never was so hard-run before!
Says, whenever I gets in jail,
Pse got a Cap'n goes my bail;
And a Lu-ula, and a Lu-ula,
And a Lula that's a hard-working chile 1
And so the blues go on, singing of all conceivable interests of the Negro, apart from his religion, which is adequately taken care of in his spirituals and other religious songs. These fleeting informal stanzas, rhymed or in free verse that might fit in with, the most liberate of vers4ibertine schools of poetry, these tunes that are haunting and yet elusive, that linger in the mind's ear, but are difficult to capture within bars, have a robust vitality lacking in more sophisticated metrical movements. One specimen of blues speaks of its own tune, saying "the devil brought it but the Lord sent it." At least, it is here and lias its own interest, both as music and as a sociological manifestation. Politicians and statesmen and students of political economy who discuss the Negro problems in perplexed, authoritative fashion, would do well to study the folk-music of the colored race as expressing the feelings and desires, not revealed in direct message to the whites. Folk-poetry and folk-song express the heart of any people, and the friends of the Negro see in his various types of racial song both the best and the worst of his life. |
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