“All those middle class white boys
Out to have their fun.”
–Mose Allison
Elvis took “Hound dog” from Big Momma Thorton
Koerner, Ray and Glover were hanging out
With Big Joe Williams and copying every grunt
And sigh off the old seventy eight’s, those days.
Tom Rush copped “The Panama Limited,”
Talking dialogue and all, off of Bukka White.
In the early years, John made himself as mysterious
As St Elmo’s fire and swamp gas, but in the end
We were all stealing other folks’ music,
Plain and simple, not out of disrespect,
But blind ignorance, admiring,
Coveting other people’s lived experience.
What else would you have people do,
Who wake up living in Boomtown in the fifties,
Like that man who fell to earth,
Trying to get his bearings
When the anesthesia wears off,
Struggling for air and trying to plug up the holes?
I don’t listen to my old stuff, John said,
Not long before he died,
Too much like a minstrel show,
And I haven’t played the blues in years.
Believe me, John, Bukka White told him,
After all these years, my hands
Still as hard as the soles of your shoes.
I was there—and there ain’t no romance
About road gang work, doing time on the County Farm,
Or cutting sugar cane along the Brazos
With some cracker in sun glasses sitting his horse,
With a pump shotgun over the saddle
Telling you whether you can get a drink of water—
Yes sir, boss,
Or take a pee,
No, sir boss.
No romance in a nine pound hammer—
No, sir boss.
Water’em down.
Yes, sir boss.
No romance in dragging a hundred pound bale of cotton.
When Muddy Waters got some real money
He bought himself a new Buick and a house in the suburbs.
Yes siree Bob—Boss.