Ha, definitely not rich, but I am a privileged white dude who adores old country blues and other related genres. Although I genuinely think early blues and jazz musicians are absolute geniuses, it has always felt a little incongruous with my own lived experience. Good to be reminded not to fetishize or romanticize things too much. I don’t know if any of that made sense. The cartoon says it much better.
I think that makes sense, and every music style has a sense of culture that is a bit hard to break into. Let’s just say it’s not common for rappers to come from wealthy or suburban backgrounds. It would be pretty weird if a country musician came right out of Boston for example, it would be hard for them to break into that.
I feel like every genre has some culture around it, and with that culture always comes some gate keeping. I mean go bring your middle aged ass to a new age punk band, and see how comfortable you feel there… but with that gatekeeping also comes a sense of community that gives that music a special home to those people.
I also think the gatekeeping also makes music discovery extra exciting. It feels like you’re breaking into somewhere foreign when you branch out, specifically because of that new subset of culture.
Well put. You really hit on something at the end there. Shared culture and community. What I admire as much as anything about blues, jazz, hip-hop for that matter, is how people in extremely repressive circumstances were able to create culture and meaning in spite of it. And yet, although I admire that strength of human spirit immensely, I can never fully be a part of it. My role is to recognize instead how I have been part of the system that created the oppression.
He puts emphasis on how “things can only get better”, being at the bottom of life. Separated from long-term desires.
“In the 19th century the English phrase blue devils referred to the upsetting hallucinations brought on by severe alcohol withdrawal. This was later shortened to the blues, which described states of depression and upset, and it was later adopted as the name for the melancholic songs that the musical genre encapsulates.”
Lol. I’ll try, as a white, affluent, middle-aged male. I’ll volunteer “having the blues” means “feeling sad/hopeless from life’s many relentless challenges”
Can you explain the joke to me?
They seem to be rich, harder to have the blues.
Ha, definitely not rich, but I am a privileged white dude who adores old country blues and other related genres. Although I genuinely think early blues and jazz musicians are absolute geniuses, it has always felt a little incongruous with my own lived experience. Good to be reminded not to fetishize or romanticize things too much. I don’t know if any of that made sense. The cartoon says it much better.
I think that makes sense, and every music style has a sense of culture that is a bit hard to break into. Let’s just say it’s not common for rappers to come from wealthy or suburban backgrounds. It would be pretty weird if a country musician came right out of Boston for example, it would be hard for them to break into that.
I feel like every genre has some culture around it, and with that culture always comes some gate keeping. I mean go bring your middle aged ass to a new age punk band, and see how comfortable you feel there… but with that gatekeeping also comes a sense of community that gives that music a special home to those people.
I also think the gatekeeping also makes music discovery extra exciting. It feels like you’re breaking into somewhere foreign when you branch out, specifically because of that new subset of culture.
Well put. You really hit on something at the end there. Shared culture and community. What I admire as much as anything about blues, jazz, hip-hop for that matter, is how people in extremely repressive circumstances were able to create culture and meaning in spite of it. And yet, although I admire that strength of human spirit immensely, I can never fully be a part of it. My role is to recognize instead how I have been part of the system that created the oppression.
As a non native english speaker, what does “have the blues” mean?
The general phrase is pretty well described by Elton John/Bernie Taupin’s song… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6KYAVn8ons
He puts emphasis on how “things can only get better”, being at the bottom of life. Separated from long-term desires.
“In the 19th century the English phrase blue devils referred to the upsetting hallucinations brought on by severe alcohol withdrawal. This was later shortened to the blues, which described states of depression and upset, and it was later adopted as the name for the melancholic songs that the musical genre encapsulates.”
Lol. I’ll try, as a white, affluent, middle-aged male. I’ll volunteer “having the blues” means “feeling sad/hopeless from life’s many relentless challenges”
To be sad.
It’s referring to this ancient American tradition: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Man_Group?wprov=sfla1
Just joking. What the others said is correct. It means to be sad, depressed, down.