Repertoires of the Blues

The lyrics in blues are one of the most important aspects of blues music.  Blues originated lyrically with a line simply being repeated four times.  It eventually developed into the twelve bar AAB format in order to make it less repetitive.  The lyrics of a blues song are logically about rough times and struggles that the writer has.  For example, The song “Dallas Blues”, which I mentioned earlier as the first produced blues song has these lyrics: “There's a place I know, folks won't pass me by, Dallas, Texas, that's the town, I cry, oh hear me cry.  And I'm going back, going back to stay there 'til I die, until I die.”  Even the term “the blues”, the name of the genre itself, was a result of the thematic lyrics that the singers produced.  

There is a great amount of body movement in the blues.  There is simply no way to be still when listening to an accomplished blues musician.  At the bare minimum, it makes you want to tap your foot to the dominant beat, and in the case of one concert I attended, the audience was free-form dancing and twirling.  There is wide freedom in blues music to express yourself in your own way as the music moves you, and there is no negative judgement  or elitism among the musicians or the audience members.  The music simply draws people together, and however they wish to display their emotion is perfectly okay in this genre.