The Blues a brief History of the Blues by Robert M. Baker

Lost in Love

by: Scott Lewis

The initial stanzas of both songs are identical except for the line containing the suitcase. The man in the song is following a woman to a train station, and he is carrying a suitcase for her. In Take 1, he follows her carrying "a suitcase," whereas in Take 4 he is carrying his own suitcase ("my suitcase") for her. The difference between the two songs is that Take 4 reinforces the sense of interest (not love) that he has in her-the sense of interest that the reader becomes aware of. The suitcase acts as a reinforcement because something of his (a symbol of part of him, perhaps) is going with her, and he does not protest. In fact, he participates in its departure. Take 1 only implies that she is taking "a suitcase," which has no value other than just being a suitcase, and it has no relations or links to him.

With the exception of the first stanza, the remainder of both songs suggests the same meaning. Because his love is in vain, he never suspects that she will leave him; hence the statement "it's hard to tell/when all your love's in vain." When the train approaches all he can do is look "her in the eye" and cry. he is fully aware that she does not love him, but he does not understand exactly why, it seems, since he follows her to the station as if he is pleading with her. He does realize, however, that he is able to love the world (especially her), but tragically the world is not able to love him ("All my love's on vain"). The conclusion is, therefore, that her departure suggests and illustrates her lack of love for him. And, when the train leaves he is devastated and encompassed by loneliness.

Two lights on the back of the departing train serve to reveal his emotions. One light is blue and the other is red. The blue light is symbolic of his depression, which arises from their separation. The red light is symbolic of his anger (his mind). The last line of the third verse in both songs reads: "And the red light was my mind" immediately followed by "All my love's in vain," which strongly indicates that he is angry with loving people and failing to receive love in return. The blue and red lights (on the train) may also indicate that his emotions and his mind have been taken along with her as she leaves. In essence, he has lost his emotions and his mind.

Therefore, "Love in Vain," is a song about a man who struggles with relationships. Though there are two versions of the song, perhaps Robert Johnson left them nearly identical to place emphasis on a single message which he wants convey. And, reading both songs does reiterate the same message, with only a stronger sense of his feelings for her in Take 4. The world is a cruel place for the man in the song, a place where he seems isolated and emotionally abandoned by an unbalanced sense of decency for one another. In the end, he is left standing alone watching the rear of the parting train.

Nature and Robert Johnson

by: Carter Neil

The question came back to me as I started to read Robert Johnson's lyrics and hear his songs. I wrote down each occurrence of natural images in his songs in my notebook, and I tried to say what function these images played in the song (attached). Of the 13 separate images in 8 songs only three do not demonstrate some emotional state in the singer. The remaining ten images all conform to two basic categories. They either reflect the speaker's of isolation, his loneliness, or they reflect a sense of nature as threatening whereby they demonstrate his fear.

Johnson sings in "Preachin' Blues," "I can study rain/ Oh Oh Oh drive these Blues away..." He creates in these lines an incredibleamount of emotional intensity with the resounding timbre of his voice and the powerful beat and bass in the music. His voice clearly gives off a sense of isolation and loneliness-- a sense that is only enhanced by this image of rain. The word in this phrase that is a key to understanding the depth of Johnson's loneliness is not "rain" but "study." When he says "I been studyin' rain..." he is doing more than using the image of rain to reinforce an idea of isolation. He is telling the listener that he has knowledge about loneliness gained through a study of it, through an intense relationship to it. His use of the word "study" further serves to validate his attempt in the song to "preach" the Blues since a preacher must know what he's talking about.

The image of rain also occurs in "Come On In My Kitchen" as a reflection of an emotional state of loneliness. The idea of loneliness is intensified in this toned down (compared to Preachin' Blues) song not through a dramatic vocal and musical performance, but by compounding off the rain the sound of the wind and the anticipation of winter. The howin' of the wind and the dread of the coming winter combine with the oncoming rain to create in the listener a desire for comfort. Johnson fills this desire in his refrain, "you better come on in my kitchen." He presents an alternative to this dreadful world outside, an escape from rain, wind, and winter, in his home and company.

While in "Preachin' Blues" and "Come On In My Kitchen" Johnson uses natural images to reflect loneliness and a sense of isolation, he uses them for very different ends in "Crossroads" and "Stones in my Passway." In both of these songs natural images reflect some sense of fear, of distress in the speaker through their threatening nature. In "Crossroads" Johnson sings, "the sun goin' down, boy/ dark gon' catch me here." These are two really ominous lines accentuated by the almost nervous music coming from the guitar. This image of a man alone by the side of the road at night has lost some of its intensity and terror through its translation into our culture. To us being by the side of a road at night may contain a bit of fear, but to a Black man in the Delta in Johnson's time this was a terrifying position to be in. After dark a Black man could be considered to be a threat by a White man and could be beat up, or worse without any evidence of wrongdoing. So when Johnson sings about the oncoming night, he is singing about something terrible catching up to him.

"Stones in my Passway" is another song that makes use of the images of darkness and night to show the fear of the singer. Johnson sings, "I got stones in my passway, /and my road seem dark as night." He is singing about some problem in his life but without the phrase "dark as night" his problem would seem less distressing to the listener. When he says that this problem has made his "road seem black as night" he is telling us that his future is unclear and troubled by this problem. He is also imparting a sense of hopelessness with this image of dusk. In "Crossroads" this terror of dusk is catching up to him, in "Stones in my Passway" it is lying in wait down the road.

"Hellhound" is a song of true genius. In all of Johnson's work it is the only instance in which he blends the two uses of nature: in every other song nature either reflects the singers loneliness, or his fear. In "Hellhound" nature comes to represent both terror and isolation at the same time. He moves from the image of rain with its long-lived association with isolation and loneliness to the image of hail. The switch from rain to hail brings a threatening quality to the song that is only accentuated by the disturbing quality of the music. Where rain brought with it the sense of loneliness, hail brings with it both a sense of loneliness and a sense of fear.

The second natural image in "Hellhound" is another extension and revision of a previous image--that of the wind. In other Johnson songs, notably "Come on in my Kitchen," the wind's only function is to "howl," and its only use is to further a sense of the singer's isolation. In "Hellhound" the wind takes on a different function, it blows through a tree and causes the leaves to "tremble." When he sings this part of the song Johnson plays on the guitar music that trembles with the imagined tree. Just as the wind makes the tree to act afraid, to tremble, whatever it is that Johnson is running from is making him afraid, and his fear is reflected in his music and his words.

Earlier I asked, what could we learn from the Blues about how Blacks relate to the natural world when there are so few instances of natural images in the music? From looking at Robert Johnson's lyrics it is clear to me that a lot can be said by a few words. I still can't answer my question because Johnson is not all Blacks, but in his music the natural world serves to reflect his inner state. That is, he puts on to it what he is feeling at the time. If he is afraid, the sun starts to set; if he's lonely, it begins to rain; and if he is both lonely and afraid, then it hails down on him.