TORN DRESS BLUES
There's a torn dress in the corner I don't know where it's from
I got bloody knuckles and I got a broken thumb
There's a shovel by the door I don't know why it's there
I got dirty fingernails and blood all in my hair
I thought it was er tat I buried but I seen her walking down the street
If it wasn't her that I buries I guess it must have been me
The Blues is half of the essential handbook for any serious musician in the United States of America. By "the blues" what folk scholars actually mean is "music created by Africans in America." The other half is the folk music the Europeans conjured when confronted by this vast land trying to hold onto their roots. Neither is more important than the other. There's no guilt for being more in one camp than the other. In a land where certain freedoms are guaranteed in writing if not practice the only music jettisoned by the masses is that of the high born and educated, which is a goddamn fucking dirty shame. It's encapsulated by the banjo, an African instrument beloved by the ones whose necks are sunburned. As Johnny Cash would say, "meditate on it." The indigenous music got fucking trampled.