Down Hearted Blues
Down Hearted Blues
Original Text
David Evans, Big Road Blues: Tradition and Creativity in the Folk Blues (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1982): 64-65.
1Gee, but it's hard to love someone, when that someone don't love you.
2I'm so disgusted, heartbroken, too. I've got the downhearted blues.
3Once I was crazy about a man. He mistreated me all the time.
4The next man I get, he's got to promise to be mine, all mine.
5'Cause you mistreated me, and you drove me from your door.
6You mistreated me, and you drove me from your door,
7But the Good Book says, "You've got to reap just what you sow."
8Trouble, trouble, seems like I've had it all my days.
9Trouble, trouble, seems like I've had it all my days.
10Sometime I think that trouble's is gonna follow me to my grave.
11I ain't never loved but three men in my life.
12Lord, I ain't never loved but three men in my life.
13One's my father, and my brother, and the man that wrecked my life.
14Now it may be a week, and it may be a month or two.
15I said, it may be a week, and it may be a month or two.
16All the dirt you're doing to me is, honey, coming back home to you.
17I've got the world in a jug and the stopper in my hand.
18I've got the world in a jug and the stopper's in my hand.
19And if you want me, pretty papa, you've got to come under my command.
Publication Start Year
1922
Publication Notes
Music by Lovie Austin and lyrics by Alberta Turner, recorded New York, early July 1922 (Paramount 12005). The RPO version was issued by Mills Music in 1923.
RPO poem Editors
Ian Lancashire
RPO Edition
2010
Rhyme