Grooving to the Blues of Life

Running head: GROOVING TO THE BLUES OF LIFE
GROOVING TO THE BLUES OF LIFE
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1GROOVING TO THE BLUES OF LIFE
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Grooving To The Blues of Life
‘Blues’ refers to a sad, melancholic form of music (Murray, 2017), which originated
from the southern part of the United States of America, especially developed and mastered by
afro-americans in the wake of the 20th century (Mauch et al., 2015). Willie Dixon, a blues
songwriter and bassist believes the blues to be facts of life (Kitts, 2016). Nat D. Williams on
the other hand, says that the blues provide one with the will to carry on with life. This essay
will be trying to emphasize on both of these claims, with the help of two blues music to
analyze how the words in those songs relate to the statements made by Dixon and Williams.
“Take a Little Walk with Me” by Robert Lockwood, and “Swing Low, Chariot” by Sister
O.M. Terrell are the two blues which will be referred to in this essay, in order to serve the
purpose of this essay. The aim of the essay is to analyse the validity of the statements made
by Dixon and Williams, by analysing the meaning of the two songs.
In “Take a Little Walk with Me” by Robert Lockwood, the words show that the singer
is asking his partner out to take a walk with him, to a place where they long to be
(Lockwood). This place is believed to be Memphis, pertaining to the fact that sharecroppers
and field hands living in the upper Mississippi delta always longed to sneak off to Memphis,
to get a relief from their monotonous and everyday tough work life. Memphis had to offer
good jazz music on Saturdays, and has always been a city thriving with arts and music. Such
a place is exactly where a farm-worker would escape to, to find a glimpse of relief amidst the