This post is pretty actual for this weather in Hungary. During my walk in the afternoon the rain made me think "It must be God who's spraying it."... it wasn't really rain, it was a fog-curtain full of water, moving as it would live, sometimes horizontally, and after that starting meandering strangely again... so with an umbrella you didn't get too much drier.
But it didn't steal my mood. I was listening to a blues album, the Country blues by Lightnin' Hopkins. Perfect choice for this weather, the title of this post is also a quotation from a lyrics of a track in which he asks: "What am I gonna do on these rainy days?" No drums, just guitars, and an elder, hoarse voice. A report from a time when world wasn't as running as nowadays.
And if we are at this topic, the blues, let's talk about it for a few moments. I think it's important to know its history, the circumstances of its birth to understand its meaning. Musically, the songs can be very similar, but only for the first time. I first get really interested when I read this a few years ago: the main topics are always these: the questions of freedom, "I wanna go home" - homesickness, "Our life is hard", "My love left me..." Straightly human and simple feelings, the same which I wrote about the old swing-standards: because of the simplicity, it's purely honest. Comes from the heart. From a blue heart, to use this meaning of the word. And one of the best things about it is that blues is very old and has a long history. Starting with the slaves from Africa, through work-songs and many other genres, spirituals, ballads, etc. - these all played a role in the evolution of blues (and seem to be very similar but there are important differences in the topics and time, it's woth to check it up).
Their circumstances were very bad, so the birth of blues was almost statutory.
Some days ago, I read a comment on YouTube, that blues can express human emotions the best way in music. There's something in it, and sometimes I feel it, too. And the summer is often connected with blues in my mind, especially on those days when the weather is hot and dry for a long time - that's the perfect time for listening to it. Even all the day in the background... the blues...
The picture above is from the same book I mentioned in "The cat" post, titled as "City folklore".
To know more about Lightnin' Hopkins, visit wikipedia:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_HopkinsRainy day blues:
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