Sugar Cane Blues

In a discussion about tragedy, we may suddenly realize that heartbreak has no superlative.  Likewise, the Blues simply is.  An accepted source and meaning of the Blues is slave hollers, but I think the Blues is a variation on feelings found in certain West African lyrics and melody. In the following audio of "Iku, an ancestor song," you will hear prophecy poetry and melody packed blues. The song is ancient, and measured through sacred Bata drums in a one two three, one two three cadence.

Because of the unique circumstance of America's "peculiar institution," Africans in America created variations to feelings in the form of blunt phrasing, two repeated lines with a third line set in place to explain the first. 

To illustrate the why of writing and singing meaning into slave hollers, let us imagine that we are scantily clad women bending over in a field, working.  We have just given birth.  We're hot, have been in the sun since before sun up. Our fingers bleed from cotton plant thorns.  Our breasts are full, they hurt and milk drips.  We will not return to our babies until sun down.  We throw up our heads, shout or holler a line: “Oo whee this cotton growing fine now, hear?” 

We bend, continue picking, shake our heads, repeat ourselves to ourselves: “Dis cotton growing fine.” 

We understands our song; it doesn’t matter if other people share our understanding. We straighten, stretch our back muscles, sing again: “Oo whee this cotton growing fine now, hear? Dis cotton growing fine.” 

Then we smile, not because we're happy, but because even though our lives are dictated by the whims of someone else, we are in possession of our right minds.  We will not be misled and decide to complete our song with: “Dis cause my own milk sweet and sticky, he use ma nipple fa the vine.”

Oo whee this cotton growing fine now, hear?  Dis cotton growing fine

Oo whee this cotton growing fine now, hear?  Dis cotton growing fine

Dis cause my own milk sweet and sticky, he use ma nipple fa the vine.

Our song echos ancient prophecy poetry, melody packed West African blues minus verbal counting: one two three one two three one two three. Rather, our reckoning comes from within, is a body/thought calculation of cotton fields and rice paddies, an exclusive rendering of our pain in the midst of sorrow. The Blues, West African inspired arrow straight candor -- he use ma nipple fa the vine.

And so begins African American Blues, and the form's insistence on playing with your mind. The technical term is double entendre, from the French -- a double meaning, especially when the second meaning is risqué. But that woman (bending over, milk dripping) never concerned herself with correct form. She thought instead about possibilities and lack. She thought about endings, with all its gyrations and snags, being indispensable to the acceptance or rejection of her choices, for example -- run? stay? poison? run? -- an intellectual mantra and a heartbreak code as in: this might be what I’m saying, but you know just what I mean.

The last stanza in this woman’s blues song solved and exposed the owner’s greed and linked an owner's prosperity to the woman's requirement to fulfill obligations by way of her sweet/sticky milk and nipple vessel.  Because she satisfied, the owner’s vine/plantation system thrived.

In a contemporary rendition motivated by the universal slave woman's holler, the following audio, "Sugar Cane Blues,"  continues the tradition of the Blues, a happening born of circumstance.  The image is my collage titled, "The Blues."

Sugar Cane Blues
by Cathleen Bailey

Well now Earl DeRoy a drinker

and a gambler all night long.

Yes well he drunk ‘em under tables

got they cash, he did ‘em wrong.

Look here…his boys be at his back say

Cain’t get along, let’s get it on.

Chorus:

Done got the silky, full-dress blues

it was the prettiest thang I know.

Yeah got the silky, full-dress blues

why come they wanna treat me so?

Got all them golden rings, they's shiny too

I'm ooh wee ooh wee oh.

Well now Earl he bought me earrings

and a lots more shiny thangs.

Yes well he bought me golden trinkets

from his lips this here just sprang,

Look out, you’s jailbait in a bottle

sugar and raunch, sugar and tang.

Chorus

Well now Earl he shoved in daily

got the boxes pilled sky high.

Yes well them boxes sky high pilled

he said I got ta say good-bye.

Look here, I smooth that silky dress

I sigh while Earl delight my thigh.

Chorus

Well now Earl DeRoy my lover

told me what you want, my treat.

Yes well this lover man he drenched in smiles

he live on easy street.

He say this sugar cane like heaven

girl, you come you suck some sweet.

Chorus

Well now Sunday come it’s Easter

I cain’t wait to wear that dress.

Yes well it’s Easter and I’m bound for church

let Jesus bless this mess.

My daddy cocked that gun, he aimed he pressed

got holes all in that chest.

Chorus

Well now Earl DeRoy he in the ground

sweet lover, I’m so blue.

Yes well my lover he be gone for good.

I cry.  I shout.  I stew.

Detail of my quilt:
"Bebop in the Small of Her Back"

Look here, my Earl be somewheres crying too

we’s ooh wee ooh wee ooh. 

Chorus:

Done got the silky, full-dress blues,

it was the prettiest thang I know.

Done got the silky, full-dress blues
my daddy up the river, too.
And all them metal bars is banged for good
we’s ooh wee ooh wee ooh.