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Nancy Bauer (A Slow Motion Move)
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alan (Happy Thanksgiving)
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jd (Stalinists Come Out of the Woodwork)
Dan Biston (Stalinists Come Out of the Woodwork)
jd (Stalinists Come Out of the Woodwork)
Nobody Can Play the Blues Like Blind Willie McTell · Aug 8, 09:25 PM
As far as I can tell, Blind Willie McTell invented just about every riff, vocal & instrumental, that constitute what we think of as the blues. At least the traditional blues. Take a listen to “Statesboro Blues” or “Dying Crapshooter’s Blues” & then to any blues-based music from the 1960s onward. Dylan acknowledges his debt explicitly in a song of Yeatsian decorum, serious but dancing. Much of the furniture of Dylan’s songs can be found in McTell’s music, including the “big brass bed” of “Lay, Lady, Lay.” And Dylan’s cover of McTell’s “Broke Down Engine” is a master’s salute to a master. That song, by the way, contains my favorite blues stanza, bar none. The singer is addressing the Lord, i.e., praying:
If you give me back my baby, I won’t worry you no more,
Give me back my baby, I won’t worry you no more,
Don’t have to put her in my house, Lordy, just lead her to my door.
Question: Is “Lordy” the familar form of “Lord”? If so, it suggests that the singer is on intimate, even casual, terms with his God.
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