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Thanksgiving Blues

It's time for our annual Thanksgiving Blues. If you don't recall it, each year around Thanksgiving, we craft a worship service because...
Our giving thanks is deepened
when we celebrate not only the good times,
but those times that have us singing the Blues.
It is the truth that the Blues is an original American genre. Yet, as we are learning about our country that means it has an uncomfortable history. The Blues has roots in African musical traditions and Southern work songs, which means it exists due to American slavery. It is disquieting to hold this truth, yet when we do, we deepen our understanding of the Blues. It's not just a musical genre, it is a truth about our history too. Holding discomfort, moving through it, and being changed by is embedded in the style, notes, lyrics, and emotion of the Blues.

White Boy Lost in the Blues

"White Boy Lost in the Blues" was written by singer/songwriter Michael Franks. It was first recorded in 1973 by Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee on their album Sonny & Brownie. Lyle Lovett first recorded the song for his 2012 album Release Me.
You bought you a six string Gibson
You bought you a great big house
You try to sing like Muddy Waters
And play like lightnin' sounds

But since we blowed our harp
You feelin' mean and confused
We got you chained to your earphones
You just a white boy, lost in the blues

You got your '44 Desoto
Great big horns that toots
44 bad buttons on your every-day suit
But now that we bent your strings
You been feelin' mean and confused
We got you chained to your earphones
You just a white boy, lost in the blues

Got you great big house on the hillside
Got you great big field of corn
Got you a loving woman
And the bluuuues in your soul
And now that we started cooking
I been really mean and confused

​We got you chained to my headphones
You're just a white boy, lost in the blues
We got you chained to my headphones
You're just a white boy, lost in the blues
We got you chained to my headphones
You're just a white boy, lost in the blues

Visual Key to Lyrics:

Six String Gibson:
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Muddy Waters:
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Desoto Auto:
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Three of our many musically talented Members, Jerry Leggett, Randy Mitchell, and Karen Kluge have Blues selections to offer us too!
Jerry shares, "In 1994, in San Diego, I sat spellbound at B.B.King’s performance of "The Thrill Is Gone.” live with his signature guitar, Lucille. I watched several versions of this song on youtube and especially liked a performance at the White House in 2011 with King and Eric Clapton."

The Thrill Is Gone

"The Thrill Is Gone" was written and originally recorded by the blues musician Roy Hawkins in 1951. In the 1950s, B.B. King was a Memphis radio DJ who played the Roy Hawkins original on the air.  
​

How does one move on from a relationship or experience that has gone bad?  How do we regulate our emotions when the thrill for living seems like a distant memory and hope seems hard to kindle? 
The thrill is gone
The thrill is gone away
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away
You know you done me wrong baby
And you'll be sorry someday


The thrill is gone
It's gone away from me
The thrill is gone baby
The thrill is gone away from me
Although, I'll still live on
But so lonely I'll be


The thrill is gone
It's gone away for good
The thrill is gone baby
It's gone away for good
Someday I know I'll be over it all baby
Just like I know a good man should


You know I'm free, free now baby
I'm free from your spell
Oh I'm free, free, free now
I'm free from your spell
And now that it's all over
All I can do is wish you well
Roy Hawkins:
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B.B. King:
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Eric Clapton:
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Randy offers us two Blues songs to listen to: one by Townes Van Zandt performed by Guy Clark and the other an original Randy wrote and recorded.
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Rex's Blues

Ride the blue wind, high and free
She'll lead you down through misery
Leave you low, come time to go
Alone and low, as low can be

Well, if I had a nickel, I'd find a game
If I won a dollar, I'd make it rain
If it rained an ocean, I'd drink it dry
And lay me down dissatisfied

It's legs to walk and thoughts to fly
Eyes to laugh and lips to cry
A restless tongue to classify
All born to grow and grown to die

So tell my baby, I said so long
Tell my mother, I did no wrong
Tell my brother to watch his own
And tell my friends to mourn me none

I'm chained upon the face of time
Feeling full of foolish rhyme
There ain't no dark till something shines
I'm bound to leave the dark behind

Well, ride the blue wind, high and free
She'll lead you down through misery
Leave you low, come time to go
Alone and low, as low can be
​

Well, ride the blue wind, high and free
She'll lead you down through misery
Leave you low, come time to go
Alone and low, as low can be
Picture

Quarentime Blues

I've got the Quarentime Blues
I can't take no more news
Got nothing, nothing to lose
'Cept these 
Quarentime Blues

My house is closed up tight
Can't leave it day or night
I'm told this virus
Doesn't require us

Got these
Quarentime Blues
Eatin' leftover stews
Wish i could refuse
Havin'
Quarentime Blues

My family stays away
Grandkids can't come to play
I sure do miss 'em
but I can't kiss 'em

I got the 
Quarentime Blues
wearing out my house shoes

I-so-lation cross the na-tion

[guitar solo lament]

Turn the news off
Oh my, don't cough

Got the 
Quarentime Blues
Trapped like monkeys in zoos
I have limited views
'Cause of
Quarentime Blues

I know this too shall pass
how long can Quarentime  last?
Is this a shelter
Or helter skelter

Got the
Quarentime Blues
Paying somebody's dues
It's crime without clues
I've got nothing, nothing to lose


Picture
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For our final selection this year, Karen lifts up none other than the Queen of Soul, Aretha Franklin, singing "Today I Sing the Blues."

Today I'm Singing the Blues

"I'm Singing the Blues" was written by Curtis Lewis and recorded in1960 for the album "aretha with the Ray Bryant Combo." Aretha was 17 when she recorded it.
Without a word of warning
The blues walked in this morning
And circled around my lonely room

I didn't know why I had
That sad and lonely feeling
Until my baby called said we're through

Oh, yesterday this time,
I sang a love song

But today I'm singin' the blues

Hmmm, now it strikes me kinda funny
How love can be this way

We were lovers last night, honey
But I'm alone again today

And it strikes me kind of funny
How fate can be unfair
I come out on the losin' end
In every, every love affair


Yes, it must be, must be written for me
that I should be the one,
be the one to always lose


But yesterday, yesterday this time,
​I sang a love song

Oh, oh, right now I'm singin' the blues,
Oh, yeah
Aretha Franklin (1960):
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This Thanksgiving and through the rest of the 2020 holiday season we will indeed have the Blues. Yet, as each of these artists demonstrate in their music, singing the Blues - not avoiding them - is one way to find that none of us are alone. Thus we start to cure the Blues, finding one another and our gratitude once again.
  
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