Because by the time when the blues was born, the African-American people had been crossing very bad times for them, so most of the songs that they used to sing meant sad moments. Looking in a deep way into the sing’s letters, we can realized how the majority of the songs reflects sad stories, which not only was trying to show how a woman broke a man’s heart, but also what kind of repressed feelings he had. Even though when the songs doesn’t mention anything about the problems in that time, all of them induce us that it wasn’t a good times.
Saying that to be blue or to have blues means to be sad is a wrong idea since the color blue means tranquilly, serenity, etc. Being more specifics, imagine a blue landscape in the huge sky. Aren’t you going to feel calm or maybe relaxed?. In the other hand, everything depend of the context that we are talking about as people could make it looks sad.
Hi Ivan,
ReplyDeleteGood post! It's funny, you and Marcela make opposite but both interesting points: she said sometimes a song is just a song, while you are saying that even a song that seems to be about only a broken heart or a bad hangover can be representative of the times and culture. I think you are both right! Usually, the blues don't make me feel sad, but every once and a while a song will break my heart!
Jess