Topic: Humor in country blues

[Rivers]

OK this thread is a place for the funniest people and lyrics in country blues. As a subtext it's probably also about their individual brands of humor, and maybe why they are funny in the first place. You know who I'm taking about!

So if something you've heard a thousand times or just once makes you laugh out loud or at least crack a smile post it here.

I don't have time right now to post much this morning but I just thought I'd kick it off.

[dj]

Whistlin' Alex Moore's several versions of "Blue Bloomers Blues" are among my favorite examples of humor in the blues.  I can imagine he had an audience rolling on the floor with lines like:

While standing at the car line, reckon what that ol' woman done
While standing at the car line, reckon what that ol' woman done
She hugged and kissed me, then bit me on my tongue

and

I said "I believe I'll go" and raised up out of my chair
I said "I believe I'll go" and raised up out of my chair
She pulled off them blue bloomers and said "You ain't goin' nowhere"
 
and

Your hugs were so shocking and it was a mess when you were undressed
Your hugs were so shocking and it was a mess when you were undressed
I don't need no tellin' because you've got my happiness

Two versions of the song are transcribed in their entirety elsewhere in the Forum.  Follow the Whistlin' Alex Moore tag to get to them.
 

[Blue in VT]

I personaly think that "Bumble Bee" is just hilarious..."stinger as long as my right arm"

 

Blue

[uncle bud]

Furry Lewis cracks me up frequently. His Creeper Blues is a hoot:

I woke up this morning, I looked up against the wall (2)
   Roaches and the bedbugs playing a game of ball

   Score was twenty--nothing, the roaches was ahead (2)
   Roaches got to fightin' and kicked me out of bed

   Bedbugs so bad, pulled the pillow from under my head (2)
   They got a Winchester rifle and try to kill me dead

   When I woke up this morning, I looked down on the floor (2)
   Bedbug had been in my pocket and pulled out all my dough

   Mama, get your hatchet, kill the fly on your baby's head (2)
   Mama, get your hatchet and run here to my bed

   Please, bedbug, please, I done begged you twice (2)
   You done taken all my money now you want to take my life

[Cooljack]

my favorate humerous line in a song is this one from Papa Charlie Jacksons Whats that thing that shes shaking

"Whats that thing, that shes shaking? I would like to know... I mean, we all would like to know"

loads of his songs have alot of subtle humour in you dont pick up on unless you read the sleeve notes and listen to the lyrics closely

[Blue in VT]

I also chuckle everytime I hear Lonnie Johnsons "Bed bug Blues" when he talks about how the mama bed bugs is praying to god for something more to eat!!  hahaha

Cheers,

Blue

[Norfolk Slim]

I'm keen on Travellin Man by Pink Anderson (bad, shortened version on the back porch somewhere).

Verses that seem to get a smile or even a laugh include:- [NB I havent been back to the original to get these precise...]

Police caught the travellin man one day, shot him right through the head
All the people came from miles around to see if he was really dead
Telegram down south to where his mother lived and she was all upset with tears
Walked up and opened up the coffin lid, and the fool had disappeared.

Travellin man was on the titanic ship when it went sinking down
Standing up by the railings, looking all around
When that man jumped overboard all the people said he was a fool
But just ten minutes right after that he was rolling dice back in liverpool.

Its a sort of cartoon / imagery type of humour really.

We should probably add that 11 minute version of Hesitation Blues by Rev Davis too- with the endless double entendres.

[unezrider]

hello friend,
i've always gotten a kick out of blind willie mctell's line, "now, the woman i love got a mouth chock full of good gold (x2), everytime she hug & kiss me, it makes my blood run cold." from 'stole rider blues'. it paints such a humorous picture of what may be going through his mind
& i know it's not country blues, but the line from elmore james' 'hand in hand' - "they used to be "cousins", nowadays, they running hand in hand!"
chris

[Rivers]

Furry's Kassie Jones is a brilliant situation comedy. He sets us up with the epic tale of serious bravery and mayhem, then at just the right moment inserts himself into the story and would have us believe Mrs. Casey seduces him in her folding bed! Yet more proof, if any were needed, of Furry's genius.

[Johnm]

Hi all,
I'm kind of a fan of Teddy Darby's "rhymus interruptus" from "She Thinks She's Slick":

   When I was a boy, I cried to suck.  Now I am a man, I have to pay to dance.

The song is full of these, but that one's my favorite.  it can be found in Keys to The Highway.
All best,
Johnm

[uncle bud]

Papa Charlie Jackson is indeed a source of good jokes, cooljack. Here's one from the spoken intro to You Put It In, I?ll take It Out (M-o-n-e-y).

"Mm-hmm. Ya?ll talk about stingy women. Ya?ll ain?t got no stingy women. Man, I got one so stingy, she?s too scared to breathe hard for fear she?ll catch the asthma."

[Rivers]

Casey Bill was such a musical sophisticate with a great sense of humor and I guess he knew it. He would start a jazzy 6th feel swing melody and come up with the most outrageous opening line. I'm thinking particularly of "You shouldn't Do That". Try that sometime!

[chipmonk doug]

Bo Carter

[unezrider]

pine top smith's "i'm sober now".

"i don't mind playing, anytime that y'all can make me drunk. but mr. pine top is sober, now!"

-chris

[Pan]

"Terrible Operation Blues" (1930) by Big Bill Broonzy, Tom Dorsey and Jane Lucas is pretty darn funny, especially when Dorsey starts to list the items the doctor has removed from the insides of the poor patient. 
(Yazoo 1053, Big Bill Broonzy, Do that guitar rag).



Pan

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

I also chuckle everytime I hear Lonnie Johnsons "Bed bug Blues" when he talks about how the mama bed bugs is praying to god for something more to eat!!  hahaha

Cheers,

Blue

Ah yes, beg bugs "big as a jackass" said Lonnie.


I'm pretty sure this tune is intended to be humorous; Jim Jackson's "I Heard The Voice Of A Porkchop".

[mississippijohnhurt1928]

And I know this one is not really intended to be humorous, but in the Lonnie Johnson Victoria Spivey duet "Toothache Blues" Lonnie tells Victoria:

"That's nothin' but cocaine & liquor, to ease the pain."

[unezrider]

big bill broonzy's 'pussy cat blues'   meeoow!!!

[Cooljack]

anything affiliated with Bo Carter 

[MTJ3]

This is (or should be?) a loaded question.  Is it what one finds humorous today or what was--a slippery slope this--evidently humorous to the artist and intended to be humorous to his or her audience?  I have never found, for example, "Diddy Wah Diddy" or most versions of the Dozens particularly humorous, but the artists and their audiences surely did, and I do find that interesting.  (This is also a doubly interesting question in that I would speculate that the question of what blues songs might give us a contrary feeling might not generate the same level of interest or enthusiasm.)  As some of these posts suggest, much of what we today will find humorous (and I am no exception) was addressed at length in Oliver's excellent "The Blue Blues" in his Screening The Blues (and there are probably lots of other snippets if not entire monographs on the subject, but that's the first thing that comes to mind). Under any interpretation, my "desert island" vote would be for Jesse James's "Sweet Patuni," for the overall hilarity made all the more brilliant by the extended use of what Johnm referred to as "rhymus interruptus."   

[dj]

Is it what one finds humorous today or what was--a slippery slope this--evidently humorous to the artist and intended to be humorous to his or her audience?

That's a good point.  There's a lot of stuff that I think was funny in its day that's really not funny at all now.  "I whipped my woman with a single tree/You ought to hear her shouting 'Please don't murder me'" is for me a prime example of this.  Everywhere it's used, I get the feeling that it's a laugh line, but it's a subject that's just not funny any more.

On the other hand, I could be entirely wrong about the use of that verse.  It's possible that it wasn't meant to be funny but was instead a bit of macho posturing akin to a lot of what goes on in rap today.

It's also true that as I get older, I find more humor in blues lyrics.  When I was in my teens, I thought Robert Johnson was a deep mysterious guy who was haunted by devils at every turn.  Now I think he was often a pretty good comic.  So what the audience finds humorous changes over time even when the audience is one's self.
   

[Johnm]

I like the point you make, MTJ3, with regards to humor back then versus humor now.  Humor doesn't necessarily require that something be side-splitting, either.  One of my favorite humorous performers in the country Blues is Sylvester Weaver's playing partner, Walter Beasley.  It's not as though he was hilarious, but he projected a droll wit in his delivery of lyrics that really wears well.  I'm particularly fond of:

   Tadpole in the river, hatching underneath of a log
   He got too old to be a tadpole, and hatched into a natch' frog

All best,
Johnm

[MTJ3]

I didn't mean to get all heavy and serious and dampen enthusiasm for a topic that was plainly intended to be fun.  On the other end of the spectrum from the subtle forms of drollery to which Johnm refers is Lucille Bogan's unexpurgated version of "Shave 'Em Dry." If you haven't heard it, well, you pretty much have to listen to it yourself because the lyrics can't be reproduced here and the spirit can't be captured in print.   

[Rivers]

I'm happy the thread has developed an analytical aspect. Often when I find something funny I ask myself why. Sad I know but then I'm again an analyst so it's understandable.

There are many adjectives you can stick in front of the word 'humor'. Droll, risque, crass, ironic, slapstick, subtle, spiteful, childish, clever, surreal, clownish, vaudevillian, mawkish, just plain dated and/or unfunny... the classifications are endless. The other element is the set-up and delivery, timing and juxtaposition.

Furry stands out for me partly due to the timeless nature of his stuff and the way he delivers it. I mean, "Don't you wish your mama had named you Furry Lewis?", or "I hate to see that rising sun go down" in St Louis Blues which I'm sure was intentional, he chuckles after he sings it and so do I. You had to be there...

[Bricktown Bob]

On the other hand, I could be entirely wrong about the use of that verse.  It's possible that it wasn't meant to be funny but was instead a bit of macho posturing akin to a lot of what goes on n rap today.

On the other other hand, macho posturing is itself often a comic stance, as in much of Muddy Waters, Bo Diddley, and Screamin' Jay Hawkins.  Don't know much about rap today, but it seems to me that a lot of it is so over the top that it just can't be taken seriously.

[Baird]

i find myself laughing most listening to Blind Boy Fuller.

there is something about the way he dryly delivers lyrics like

"said when i'm on the wagon trying to sell a little coal,
you was in the streets hollerin who wants jelly roll.
now if i catch you doing what i caught you doing last night,
have you put back in jail"
 
from "put you back in the jail"