Tom Dickson's "Labor Blues"
The first verse the song is similar to Tom Dickson's 1928 recording "Labor Blues" in which the exchange is clearly between a white boss and an African-American worker who is quitting the job, not applying for it:
- It’s "good mornin’ Captain", ‘e said "good mornin’ Shine",
- Said "good mornin’ Captain", said "good mornin’ Shine".
- "T’ain’t nuthin’ the matter, Captain, but I just ain’t gwine.
- "I don’t mind workin’, Captain, from sun to sun,
- I don’t mind workin’, Captain, from sun to sun.
- But I want my money, Captain, when pay-day come."
Captain was a traditional term for the white boss; Shine is a derogatory expression for "African-American". Dickson was black. After the narrator rebels and quits because he is not being paid, he turns his attention to his "Mississippi gal" and the remaining lyrics concern their romance. In this 12-bar blues recording, muleskinning is not mentioned, and the remaining Dickson lyrics differ from Rodgers', whose other Blue Yodels also used verses previously recorded by Blues musicians, such as Blind Lemon Jefferson.
Read more about this topic: Mule Skinner Blues
Famous quotes containing the words tom, labor and/or blues:
“The man that hails you Tom or Jack,
And proves by thumps upon your back
How he esteems your merit,
Is such a friend, that one had need
Be very much his friend indeed
To pardon or to bear it.”
—William Cowper (1731–1800)
“Like speaks to like only; labor to labor, philosophy to philosophy, criticism to criticism, poetry to poetry. Literature speaks how much still to the past, how little to the future, how much to the East, how little to the West.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“It is from the blues that all that may be called American music derives its most distinctive character.”
—James Weldon Johnson (1871–1938)