While listening to the blues song web site, this old yet funny text on how to write phrases for blues songs came to mind

attributed to Memphis Earlene Gray with help from Uncle Plunky, revisions by Little Blind Patti D. and Dr. Stevie Franklin)

1. Most Blues begin, “Woke up this morning.”

2. “I got a good woman” is a bad way to begin the Blues, ‘less you stick something nasty in the next line, like
“I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town”

3. The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes …
sort of: “Got a good woman - with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher - and she weigh
500 pound.”

4. The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch; ain’t no way out.

5. Blues cars: Chevys and Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don’t travel in Volvos, BMWs or Sport Utility
Vehicles. Most Blues transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft an’ state-sponsored motor
pools ain’t even in the running. Walkin’ plays a major part in the blues lifestyle. So does fixin’ to die.

6. Teenagers can’t sing the Blues. They ain’t fixin’ to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, “adulthood” means
being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.

7. Blues can take place in New York City but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in St. Paul or Tucson
is just depression. Chicago, St. Louis and Kansas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You cannot have
the blues in any place that don’t get rain.

8. A man with male pattern baldness ain’t the blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking your leg
cuz you skiing is not the blues. Breaking your leg cuz an alligator be chomping on it is.

9. You can’t have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall.The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or
sit by the dumpster.

10. Good places for the Blues:
a. highway
b. jailhouse
c. empty bed
d. bottom of a whiskey glass

Bad places:
a. Ashrams
b. gallery openings
c. Ivy League institutions
d. golf courses

11. No one will believe it’s the Blues if you wear a suit,’less you happen to be an old ethnic person and you
slept in it.

12. Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if:
a. you’re older than dirt
b. you’re blind
c. you shot a man in Memphis
d. you can’t be satisfied

No, if:
a. you have all your teeth
b. you were once blind but now can see
c. the man in Memphis lived.
d. you have a retirement plan or trust fund.

13. Blues is not a matter of color. It’s a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the blues. Gary Coleman
could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the blues.

14. If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it’s the Blues.

Other acceptable Blues beverages are:
a. wine
b. whiskey or bourbon
c. muddy water
d. black coffee

The following are NOT Blues beverages:
a. mixed drinks
b. kosher wine
c. Snapple
d. sparkling water

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 another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken down
cot. You can’t have a Blues death if you die during a tennis match or getting liposuction.

16. Some Blues names for women:
a. Sadie
b. Big Mama
c. Bessie
d. Fat River Dumpling

17. Some Blues names for men:
a. Joe
b. Willie
c. Little Willie
d. Big Willie

18. Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, Auburn and Rainbow can’t sing the Blues no matter how many
men they shoot in Memphis.

19. Make your own Blues name (starter kit):
a. name of physical infirmity (Blind, Cripple,
Lame, etc.)
b. first name (see above) plus name of fruit (Lemon,
Lime, Kiwi, etc.)
c. last name of President (Jefferson, Johnson,
Fillmore, etc.)

For example, Blind Lime Jefferson, or Cripple Kiwi Fillmore, etc. (Well, maybe not “Kiwi.”)

20. I don’t care how tragic your life: if you own a computer, you cannot sing the blues.

That’s very funny. I’ve always liked the blues as an observer, can’t call myself an expert. According to this list of criteria, I’m not really a candidate for the blues, but I don’t buy it. :-) The blues belongs to all of us.

Brilliant! Definitely not a blues man, especially after that temporary blindness (although it rains a lot where I live).

brilliant plus one

Great tips for my next blues song. Very funny, I think I used most of them here though : http://ccmixter.org/files/s...

I’d just like to say that the blues can definitely take place in Canada! I had a friend who said that “the blues in Canada is just white kids playing black music on Japanese guitars on native land!”

good line! But it must be from the prior millennium — before the kids switched to Chinese guitars (the Japanese one’s being too expensive by now) :-)