Letters from Loonville

What is the blues, anyway?

Blues is about innuendo, not the direct phrasing of things. I sing about sex, even about the specific act of cunnilingus, but I never say it in the song.

Damn it to hell, I love cunnilingus. It's all I can do to restrain myself from singing during cunnilingus. I was really happy with the woman I used to date who liked me to hum "Camptown Races" during what we referred to as "clisses," but that's another story.

The test of a blues is whether people who don't get it accidentally get it. If they do, then it isn't a blues. Seven year-olds are particularly fond of "Let Me Play With Your Poodle," a song about cavorting with a topiaried canine to them, and that's their right, to have those minds.

Legitimate blues shows its roots among the oppressed. The oppressed don't take away the rights of others, because they
know all to well what that's like.

I'm sure that sounds rigid and preachy, but I know what I'm talking about, and that IS the blues.

How long could anyone ride an image like the one such a song as that would give? Well, how long can a wig from which such
songs come remain truly big in the eyes of a real blues person?

Therein, I hope, is your answer.