The language of Blind Lemon Jefferson: the covert theme of blindness.

I am an invisible man.

(Ellison 1986, 17)

And it's tough to see a man go to the rack and almost starve and die.

--Blind Lemon Jefferson ("Tin Cup Blues," 1929)

I can't see ya, but I can smell ya!

--Blind Lemon Jefferson (quoted in James [1997, 14])

Because of his strong artistic influence and commercial impact on the newborn country blues race-records field, Blind Lemon Jefferson has often been considered by music critics as an archetypal figure. If it is true that "the blues are the true facts of life expressed in words and song, inspiration, feeling and understanding"--as bluesman Willie Dixon remarked (Dixon and Snowden 1989, 2)--then nobody better than Jefferson depicted African-American life in the 1920s South. After working as an itinerant street musician for more than ten years, he began an extremely successful recording career, which lasted from 1926 to 1929 and resulted in a total of 110 sides (including all his alternate takes), of which seven were not issued and six are not yet available in any format. (1) His compositions reflect a strong and complex personality expressing, in an ironic, humorous, sad, yet never contradictory and self-pitying manner, his own way of understanding existence.

The purpose of this study is to reassert Jefferson's relevance as an artist through an examination of his lyrics and to show that the language he used is not casual, derivative, or negligible. A more-or-less cryptic message is present in each of his compositions, and such a message, in turn, represents a clear reflection of one of the most extensive, heterogeneous, and at the same time closely knit bodies of blues lyrics handed down to us. The tightly interconnected nature of his texts constitutes such an extremely variegated range of themes--either drawn from tradition and shaped into something new and vital or, especially in the latter part of his recording career, stemming directly from his textual creative power--that it is impossible to delve thoroughly into all of them here. However, unlike previous studies of Blind Lemon Jefferson's lyrics, this study's challenge is to outline the development of this bluesman's lyrical artistry and imagery by examining his poignant songs from a broader perspective. Jefferson's seemingly primitive and thoughtless approach to blues lyric composition turns out to be, in a more detailed analysis, the result of a careful--albeit instinctual--choice of the most suitable words to convey the deepest meanings and feelings.

Blindness on Blindness

In the past few years, researchers have focused their efforts on recovering biographical information on Jefferson. Such activity has been fundamental for preserving the memory of a musician who died over seventy years ago, but it may also have contributed to Jefferson's progressively lower degree of visibility in the pre-war blues panorama, from a critical point of view. Nevertheless, Jefferson's linguistic creative power has always been apparent since the first insightful pieces of criticism that blues scholars produced beginning at the end of the 1950s. To name just the most outstanding and relevant to this subject matter, there are the first pioneering acknowledgments of Jefferson's stature as a man and poet (Oliver [1959] 1988, 64-70; Charters 1959, 57-72; Charters [1967] 1991, 175-189); the first anthologized transcriptions of whole texts (Sackheim 1969, 72-91, 457-458), followed by a more complete serialized collection (Groom 1967-71, 1974; Groom 1970), amended--although not always enhanced--in successive stages (Taft 1983, 124-137; Macleod 1988, 65; Macleod 1992, 31-33, 379-397; Macleod 1994, 153-187); the hermeneutic, as well as statistical, study on the evolution of Jefferson's lyricism from a mainly traditional to a progressively more cohesive thematicism (Evans 1987, 75-81; Evans 1999, 1:607-609); and the meticulous attempt at assembling the pieces of Jefferson's biographical mysteries with a view to interpreting his songs (Govenar 1991; Govenar and Brakefield 1998, 61-79; Swinton 1997).

Yet, absent so far is a comprehensive analysis of Jefferson's lyrics and how they interact; as a consequence, detailed treatment of his personality and psychology as they relate to his lyrical output is also lacking. Such types of neglect are closely interconnected and are due in part to the conceptual error of considering each song as independent from the rest of an artist's repertoire. Such a myopic outlook narrows the critic's field of vision and creates a fuzzy and distorted picture; the result is that the artistic value of some seminal blues figures may be completely overlooked.

Although he is not the most glaring example of such neglect, Jefferson is one of the most illustrious victims of this error, which has often led to a stereotypical and sterile mythologizing. It is easy to understand why this has happened if one compares Jefferson's and other blues lyricists' compositions. For example, if one were to examine the formal similarities between Robert Johnson and Jefferson without matching the iconography emerging from their songbooks, one would find many analogies, such as their artistic creativity and influence on subsequent players, their untimely and mysterious deaths, and the scarcity of photographic evidence about them. In contrast, and notwithstanding a few evident references to superstition, Jefferson's texts have "all the characteristics of a nonmythical expression" (Monge 1985b, 43; my translation). Despite the similarities, the antimythical quality of Jefferson's lyrics--compared with the visionary features of Johnson's lyrics (LaVere 1990)--is exactly what has marked the difference between the two, thus creating the legendary aura surrounding Johnson, who nowadays personifies the blues myth, par excellence.

Just like any other single manifestation of an art form, a blues text can either be scrutinized as through a magnifying glass (see Monge 1985a; Monge n.d.) or viewed from a distance. To provide a new contribution to the understanding of the major role played by Jefferson in the development of the blues idiom, I envisage his texts not as separate subjects but as parts of a whole. Such a wider view obviously entails a change of focus on Jefferson's lyrics. The psychological portrait painted in his songs (which is not necessarily the same as his actual psychology), reconciled with known facts about his life, including the fact of his blindness, could also help build a more-convincing, better-founded, and less-contradictory profile of the man.

In order to shed light on the multifaceted metaphor of blindness in Jefferson's lyrics, one must set general standards for determining which textual statements in the blues are functionally visual. The range of such criteria should be all-inclusive; if it is limited only to explicit mentions of vision, a great number of potentially significant submerged images could be missed. Thus, I take into account not only direct descriptions of the act of seeing, viewing, and so on, but also indirect, covert, or perhaps even inadvertent implications that paint a picture or refer to some object, person, action, or event that can only be appreciated or understood fully by visualizing it. This method is applicable to any text meant as an oral or written linguistic production and is particularly valid for Jefferson, whose plain visual references represent only the tip of the iceberg.

Blindness Blues

The important role of blind performers in molding the blues language has unfortunately not been explored fully, although it has not been totally ignored. Indeed, the effort that has been made in this regard, although deficient from a quantitative viewpoint, is not altogether unsatisfactory from a qualitative viewpoint.

The first popular emergence of the image of a blind street performer of blues appears in William Christopher Handy's "Beale Street Blues," which refers to "the blind man on the corner who sings the `Beale Street Blues.'" It is interesting to note that this archetypal image dates from 1916, when the young Blind Lemon Jefferson was still far from recording but was gaining experience as an itinerant musician in Dallas and elsewhere.

Joseph Witek (1988) deals with the theme of blindness in the blues, viewing it as a rhetorical trope for "otherness." Although Witek's work focuses mainly on two post-World War II visually impaired recording artists and street performers, Jim Brewer and Arvella Gray, it is taken here as a valuable starting point. According to Witek (1988, 178), "The blindness myth comes in two main forms. The best-known image is that of the blind genius, doomed and gifted by fate to trade his eyesight in return for his artistic talent.... The other, mostly negative image is that of the suffering blues singer begging with a tin cup. This formulation casts blindness as the mark of a cruel fate which caps the singer's degradation and alienates him from his community."

After associating Brewer and Gray with their respective images, Witek makes the following argument:

   If ... Blind Lemon Jefferson is "almost the archetype of all bluesmen" ...,
   then the fact of the singer's blindness must come close to the bone of the
   way American culture regards blues music. The figure of Blind Lemon
   Jefferson combines the two threads of the blindness image; his
   well-documented musical ability merits him the title of "a true naive
   genius of [black] American folksong", ... and we know just enough about his
   wandering life and obscure death to cast him as a figure of blues
   suffering. (192)

Finally, Witek correctly maintains a distance from the "romanticized stereotype of the blind bluesman ... begging on the corner with his tin cup," dismissing it as "an image of black powerlessness" (193), and concludes that, in both artists' categorizations (and by analogy, presumably even more so in Jefferson, who combines them in himself), "[s]ightlessness thus becomes a version of blackness" (192), and that "blindness in the blues finally works not only as a trope of musicology but as a cultural metaphor, an image of the ways human beings struggle against and overcome exclusion by turning what others regard as a handicap and a mark of otherness into a form of personal power" (193).

A sketchy reading of blindness as a social metaphor for "otherness" in rural blues communities had already been given by Ben Sidran in a more sociologically oriented study. He argues that, apart from offering an escape from unemployment, blindness can provide a type of authority:

   [B]lindness is potentially an advantage when dealing in so heavily an
   oral/aural occupation as blues singing. Blind blues singers, from Blind
   Lemon Jefferson through Ray Charles, have wielded a certain amount of
   authority within the blues idiom. This authority comes from an obvious
   personal commitment to blues techniques; the vocalized tone is heightened
   and the intensely individualized presentation of the song is strengthened,
   for blindness is itself an agent of isolation. Just as important is the
   authority the black community grants to blind singers, as if blindness were
   both an exaggeration of the "black man's burden" and a physical metaphor
   for black life in America. Neither of these explanations adequately covers
   the importance of the blind blues singer as a dominant image in the psyche
   of the black culture because his importance is so closely involved with the
   concept of orality, itself so much a part of black life. (Sidran 1981,
   83-84)

It is perhaps worth adding that one of the manifold effects of granting authority to blind (predominantly blues and gospel) musicians was the license that the community tacitly gave them to sing whatever they wanted (or whatever people asked them) in order to make ends meet. In practice, they were the first to be entitled to do what any other jazz interpreter, classic blues singer, bluesman or blueswoman, or black entertainer was not supposed to embark upon,

that is, to have a mixed sacred-secular repertoire or to combine spiritual and profane elements in a song or style. (2) Because of sympathy for their disability, blind virtuosos were immune to the criticism of alternating or mixing devoutness and worldliness, so they paved the way for sighted musicians (e.g., Eddie "Son" House's "Preachin' the Blues"). The final result was that they proved instrumental in bridging the sacred-secular dichotomy, perhaps not such a significant gap musically but one that had not been crossed in either direction, socially.

Blind Lemon Jefferson's Blindness Blues

In the case of Jefferson's blindness, the relatively large dossier on his affliction may at first induce us to believe that we are very lucky to have so much information, especially considering that his death took place at an early age and so long ago. In fact, the literature on Jefferson's condition consists of few original facts or useful additional data, well-known reported accounts of his "uncanny abilities," and trite or recycled material. In particular, opinions differ as to whether Jefferson was blind from birth, whether he had some residual sight, and even whether he used to be regularly or only occasionally led around by lead boys or would-be musicians. Unfortunately, independent of how old, firsthand, or fact-based these arguments may be, they have rarely been enhanced by full-length substantiated inquiries into the psychological and possibly also physical implications for his lyrical output. Although a thorough chronological examination of the comments on Jefferson's blindness could help spotlight hackneyed or faulty interpretations of his rapport with it, only the relevant facts will be covered here.

One of the earliest discussions of Jefferson's blindness is a brief statement accompanying printed versions of five of his blues in The Paramount Book of Blues ([ca. 1927], 3):

   Can anyone imagine a fate more horrible than to find that one is blind? To
   realize that the beautiful things one hears about--one will never see? Such
   was the heart-rending fate of Lemon Jefferson, who was born blind and
   realized, as a small child, that life had withheld one glorious joy from
   him--sight. Then environment began to play its important part in his
   destiny. He could hear--and he heard the sad hearted, weary people of his
   homeland, Dallas--singing weird, sad melodies at their work and play, and
   unconsciously he began to imitate them--lamenting his fate in song. He
   learned to play a guitar, and for years he entertained his friends
   freely--moaning his weird songs as a means of forgetting his affliction.
   Some friends who saw great possibilities in him, suggested that he
   commercialize his talent--and as a result of following their advice--he is
   now heard exclusively on Paramount.

Despite its sentimental style, old-fashioned language, and advertising purpose, this statement should not be overlooked or ridiculed, as it has been (see, for example, Calt [1984]). It was most likely published in or not long after 1927, the latest date of any printed song in the book. Because this publication dates from Jefferson's lifetime, it is very likely based on contact, if not on an actual interview, with him; therefore, it may have some sort of authenticity and may be considered--along with Jefferson's song lyrics--the only "authorized" description of his disability.

Although one might think that the most objective background information would come from official records, the only known official source about Jefferson's blindness is the 1900 census, where he is registered as "BS," that is, "blind son" (see Roberts 1997, 5).

Downright contradictory are the memories of two of Jefferson's still-living contemporaries from his home town of Wortham, Texas. Quince Cox, age 96 when interviewed in 1999 and ten years Jefferson's junior, avers that his renowned acquaintance "wore glasses and couldn't be stone blind and do all that" (Cox 1999). Hobart Carter, age 101 when David Evans and the author spoke with him and only five years younger than Jefferson, is more skeptical about the artist's partial vision, as indicated in the following portion of the interview between Carter and Evans:

David Evans (D. E.): Do you know whether he was born blind? Hobart Carter (H. C.): He sure was, sure was. D. E.: Was he stone blind, or could he see a little bit? H. C.: I don't think so. I think he stone blind. I believe he was, I'm not for sure. He may not a' been, but I think he mostly stone blind. D. E.: People say he could get around pretty good ... H. C.: Oh, he could get around good. Walked these roads and sing at night. He bottom sing down here, and Crook's Creek sing. (3) He'd go across them bridges at night. D. E.: All by himself? H. C.: Sure would. D. E.: He didn't need anybody to lead him around? H. C.: No, not too much, 'cause he had a stick, I think. Yeah, he had him a stick.

Carter (1999) also recalled that Jefferson did not use a seeing-eye dog.

The following is the earliest reported adventure from Jefferson's childhood, collected by Samuel Charters from Jefferson's family members in Wortham and published thirty years after the musician's death:

   Lemon grew up with the other children, playing their games, running with
   them across the fields, sitting quietly while they tried to sneak up on
   rabbits. The rabbits skittered away from the children with a sudden rush
   that made them shriek with excitement. Lemon seemed to be able to follow
   them anywhere they went. When they would run across the fields and into the
   brush along Cedar Creek, south of the farm, he'd run after them, stand
   listening to them cross the footlogs over the stream, then slowly walk the
   footlogs after them. The neighbors thought he had a kind of gift. (Charters
   1959, 58)

No less discouraging are the various memories of the people who met Jefferson, which confirm the suspicion that none of his presumed closest acquaintances--perhaps not even Huddie "Leadbelly" Ledbetter and Sam Price, who seem to have known him better than others--was actually so familiar with Jefferson as to urge him to reveal his real condition. Among the somewhat contradictory descriptions touching on Jefferson's character as it is mirrored by his impairment are Victoria Spivey's and Josh White's. According to Spivey (1966, 9):

   Blind Lemon was a medium size brownskin who kept himself neatly dressed. He
   was erect in posture and his speech was lovely and direct to the word. He
   had no glasses when I first saw him. A young man who was very attentive to
   him acted as his guide. Although he was supposed to be completely blind I
   still believe he could see a little. If he couldn't he darn sure could feel
   his way around (the old wolff! smiles!!). Lemon never let his misfortune
   [of] sight press him. He would let you know that he was just as much a man
   as anybody. One of his most common expressions was, "Don't Play Me
   Cheap"--and people liked him and respected him.

When asked about rumors concerning Jefferson's bad behavior, White added, "He was a hard man, yes, because all blind people are. That is I haven't found one yet that wasn't. They can't see and they don't want to be taken advantage of, so they are inclined to be sensitive and a bit suspicious.... But to suggest ... that Lemon was hard, mean and rough, and tore his food with his bare hands and so on, I can't say that" (quoted in Jones 1968, 16).

There are also a number of episodes and anecdotes that demonstrate how acutely Jefferson's senses had developed to make up for his sightlessness. His exceptional hearing was witnessed by two Texan contemporaries. Guitarist Mance Lipscomb testified that Jefferson "had a tin cup wired on ta the neck a his gittah. An when you give him something, why, he'd thank ya. But he wouldn never take no pennies. You could drap a penny in there an he'd know the sound: He'd take it out an throw it away" (Alyn 1994, 200). Pianist Sam Price confirmed Jefferson's ability to perceive whether the bluesman's wife had drunk whiskey during his absence by shaking the bottle and determining how much liquor remained in it (Govenar 1988, 16; see also Price 1990, 14).

Attesting to Jefferson's augmented tactile sensitivity, OKeh recording pioneer Polk Brockman told interviewer Roger Brown that, in addition to getting around "remarkably well for a blind man, ... Jefferson once requested $5.00 from Tom Rockwell, who, in jest, handed him a dollar bill, whereupon Lemon demurred: `That ain't no $5.00 bill!'" (quoted in Brown 1975). Jefferson's disciple and fan Tom Shaw corroborated this, affirming that "Lemon could do anything you could do. Lemon could go anywhere he wanna go by hisself. He could tell you any kind of bill you bring up there. You could hand him a dozen bills; he'd tell you just that fast, what bills, whether it's a five or one dollar bill" (quoted in Calt [1984]).

Since there is no denying Jefferson's poor vision, his proverbial and seldom-disputed sense of direction and the inexorable necessity to be aided in difficult situations can be seen as two sides of the same coin. Many pieces of evidence testify to both, although they mainly reflect scholars' opinions that are, in some cases, no less derivative and contradictory than the stories just reported. Surprisingly, firsthand and easily available information such as the following has never been highlighted in studies on Jefferson: "In March 1927 he [Polk Brockman] and Tom Rockwell of Okeh escorted Jefferson to the Dallas depot for a trip to Atlanta.... Having made an appointment for the session, he [Brockman] then proceeded to Atlanta on another train. When Lemon arrived very late, Brockman asked him where in the world he had been. Lemon replied that he had gotten off at Shreveport, because he'd never been there and wanted to see the town" (Brown 1975; my italics).

The following quotations on Jefferson's infirmity all insist on his possible residual ability to see: "Although he was believed blind from birth, there have been accounts of him picking cotton as a youngster (a difficult task for someone who cannot see), stories of an uncanny ability to find his way around the streets of Dallas and Chicago unaided. Nobody knows why he wore clear glasses" (Steinberg 1988, 25); "Researcher Mack McCormick said Blind Lemon's sister talked of his independence and said that when she'd visit him in Dallas he'd show off how well he could get around unaided" (Govenar and Brakefield 1998, 67); and finally,

   There have been suggestions that Blind Lemon may, in fact, have had some
   residual vision. This would seem to be confirmed by his brief part-time
   career as [a] side-show wrestler, that in the two known photographs of
   Jefferson, he is wearing different pairs of spectacles, and both have clear
   glass, and that he was reported to have regularly carried a loaded six
   shooter, a manifestly frightening implement in the hands of a visually
   impaired individual! (Swinton 1997, 4)

On the other hand, it has been decisively stated by Samuel Charters that Jefferson "never let anyone lead him because he didn't want people to think he was blind" (Charters 1959, 61; my italics). But Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins (1959) explained to Charters, "No, they wouldn't 'low you to lead him, 'cause they say you call him blind. No, don't call him blind, 'cause he didn't never ... He never did feel like he blind, `cause he was always like that. He was born like that. Yeah." This statement gives us greater insight as to the shifting sense to be ascribed to the adjective blind, by which Hopkins intended those who have gone blind compared to those who were born blind. The former would need to be constantly accompanied, whereas the latter--being accustomed to getting around by themselves since they had started to walk--would only need someone to hold onto in awkward settings, which is probably what Lightnin' Hopkins meant by "being led." All this can be deduced from the subject "they" (not "he") that Hopkins utters to refer to the adults at the picnic he and Jefferson were attending and probably also people in general who knew and cared about the maestro.

It is also interesting that the few people who actually mention or even describe themselves as having functioned as Jefferson's "leaders" were musical partners or understudies. More credible than Charters' basically true, but drastic, remark is that "[i]n the familiar districts Blind Lemon's sense of direction was uncanny to those who watched him. He could find his way without a lead boy to act as his eyes but when he was travelling he welcomed assistance" (Oliver 1988, 65). Still, Charters' explanation of Jefferson's reluctance to be escorted is of some weight, and one is left to wonder why neither he nor Vinny Cortese, who has lately reprised the concept in a commemorative article on Jefferson, has ever tried to demonstrate, confute, or at least develop it. Perhaps not fully aware of the truthfulness of his statement, Cortese asserts, "Whether he was totally blind is open to conjecture as he had the uncanny ability to make people believe otherwise. He wore clear glasses and got around mostly by himself with the aid of a walking stick" (Cortese 1993, 27; my italics). I have italicized these two critics' phrases to highlight the fact that, as far as I know as of the date of this writing, the challenge of going to the core of the problem has not been addressed.

Much more uncertain than Jefferson's inner ability to orient himself is the question of to what extent and on which occasions he was helped to get around. In this connection, quite a few bluesmen have purported or openly declared that they acted as companions for him in his extensive ramblings. Among them are Josh White, who started to conduct blind musicians when he was a youngster and claimed to have "led [Jefferson] a little better than two years off and on" (quoted in Jones 1968, 16); Leadbelly, who recalled, "Him and me was buddies, he was a blind man, an' I used to lead him aroun'" (quoted in Oliver 1988, 64); and Aaron "T-Bone" Walker, who repeatedly underlined the importance of this experience: "I used to lead him around, playing and passing the cup, take him from one beer joint to another" (quoted in Govenar and Brakefield 1998, 67), "I'd lead him and they'd put money in his cup" (O'Neal and O'Neal 1972-73, 21), and "Though I was only a kid, he had me to lead him around" (quoted in Dance 1987, 11).

But it has also been supposed that "[t]he stories of Lemon being led around by various blues singers can probably be dismissed as, by other accounts, he had, like Blind Willie McTell in Georgia, an uncanny ability to get around" (Groom 1991). Not accidentally, the only musician who upholds this idea is Sam Price, who has never claimed to have led Jefferson around:

   People used to say that Leadbelly and Josh White used to lead Blind Lemon
   around. He was an awfully proud man, and I can understand why he froze to
   death in Chicago. J. Mayo Williams ... told the story about Lemon's death
   in Chicago in 1930 [sic]. Someone was to meet him at the LaSalle Station,
   and when they didn't meet him he tried to walk from the station to the
   South Side of Chicago. To me, this doesn't sound like a man who needed to
   be led around. (Price 1990, 14)

The whole debate can be judiciously summarized by the following:

   Perhaps Blind Lemon used a lead boy at some times--particularly when he was
   in unfamiliar surroundings--and not at others. Some of those who claim to
   have led him may be embellishing their own stories. Or perhaps the stories
   are true, and Blind Lemon simply liked the company or enjoyed serving as a
   mentor to younger musicians. (Govenar and Brakefield 1998, 67)

The preceding contrasting series of quotations and comments conspicuously shows what was previously anticipated, that is, how little systematic reliance (if any) has so far been placed on Jefferson's own words in his songs. To a certain extent, this critical attitude is understandable: a great number of erroneous or superficial interpretations based on the groundless association of an artist's life with his or her body of work have been provided in many fields of study, blues included.

One may partially agree with Paul Oliver (1990, 250) when he writes that, in general, "few blind blues singers gave so much as a hint of their perpetual darkness, while others, like Blind Boy Fuller, only betrayed the fact by a passing but meaningful reference." Jefferson's case, however, is more complex and less clear-cut. His attitude toward blindness is "deceitful" (if we may borrow and decontextualize one of his most common adjectives describing women), and such duplicity results from combining two antithetical forces: a centrifugal force exerted to avoid any straight reference to blindness in order to make people believe he had some residual vision and a centripetal force that led him to unconsciously use a number of visualizations in his lyrics.

Yet taking his spectacular ability to get around by himself as a fact, it has been suggested that he may not have been born blind: "The legend that he was blind from birth appears to have no foundation" (Calt [1984]). But his high degree of independence does not mean that he became sightless later; in fact, it reinforces Hopkins' contention about Jefferson's unwillingness to be thought blind. It is understandable that Jefferson might have concealed the fact that he could see a little in order not to be taken advantage of, but the opposite is also possible--that he did not want to be thought of as blind because he could see nothing at all or just had some light perception.

Exorcizing Blindness

All in all, it is not surprising that blindness represents the chief cause underlying the way Jefferson's favorite topics are treated. Less predictable, however, is the method Jefferson unconsciously adopts to exorcize his sightlessness. As already noted by others, in fact, Jefferson's lyrics are replete with visual references (see, for example, Oliver 1988, 66; Groom 1991; Wolfe and Lornell 1994, 43),(4) but neither their quantity, occurrence, and denotation nor, above all, their quality, scope, and connotation have ever been fully appraised. Regarding the former aspect, Jefferson's visual references have the peculiarity of being scattered throughout his repertoire, thus making themselves difficult to discern even to the eyes of the most attentive searcher. As for the latter, they are purposely disguised, blurred, and sometimes even ambiguous or ambivalent so that, in contrast to what happens in his consistently developed thematic compositions, blindness never forms an explicit thematic unity or attains the status of becoming the main subject of a song.

On the basis of my research, no fewer than 241 direct or indirect visual references expressed in the first, second, or third person or inferable from the context are spread over Jefferson's currently available ninety-seven original recordings, alternate takes included (see App.). Only seven compositions have no visual reference whatsoever. Dividing the total number of visual references in Jefferson's lyrics by the number of all his issued songs presently at our disposal results in a figure of 2.48 references per song.

The intrinsic visual power illustrated in these visual references changes according to the moment, just as any act of seeing is subject to external parameters. Therefore, some visual references are naturally weaker than others. Some of them are more-or-less conventional expressions, but they have been listed in the appendix because collectively they suggest a remarkable concern with color (e.g., "fair brown," "deep blue sea," "too black bad") or vision (e.g., "We'll be seldom seen," "like you have never seen before," "Don't look for me"). Others may use visual language even though the meaning is only feebly visual (e.g., "Don't matter to me if it's sunshine, I mean, snow or rain"). Also included are references where Jefferson seems to position other objects or himself in relation to various objects or people; for example, "I'm standing front of this bakershop" or "Crawled from the fireplace and he stopped in the middle of the floor." All these weak usages take on greater significance when placed near the many stronger ones as in a sort of osmotic process. In certain cases, however, Jefferson's language is only seemingly visual. Therefore, despite their high psychological incisiveness, I have excluded from the appendix all the phrases employing words generally associated with vision but having no inherent or contextual visual sense, such as "I can't really see no peace" ("Old Rounders Blues"), "I don't see why" ("Match Box Blues" [4424-2]), and "I just can't see what" ("Change My Luck Blues").

Jefferson's visual references come from both traditional lyrics and original creative lyrics, from either or both of which each blues artist has to derive his or her compositional craftsmanship. Jefferson's unpremeditated way of expressing his sense of vulnerability due to poor sight can be detected throughout his body of work. Not surprisingly, however, traditional lyrics seem to abound in the first half of his four-year recording career (1926-27). They have a weaker misleading force than the more innovative, thematic, and assertive original lyrics that he created during the years 1928-29, but they are so inventively and effectively amalgamated with the rest of the assembled construction as to acquire new shades of meaning. (5)

First-, Second-, and Third-Person References

From a linguistic point of view, Jefferson's references to the sense of vision can be divided into three categories: first-person references, second-person references, and third-person references. In general, the first category consists of opaque gems perfectly mounted on a jewel-like composition that coherently develops its principal theme and possible sub-themes by means of self-addressed visual double entendres. Most of them are bleary statements of frustrated or frustrating ability to see, unequivocally--although only implicitly--expressed by using verbs normally associated with visual perceptions, such as see, look, watch, or the often sardonic spy. Many self-directed references are not immediately recognizable due to their vagueness, whereas those turned toward other people are quite definite. Jefferson's autoironic pungency is illustrated by verses such as "the girl I love and the one I crave to see" ("Wartime Blues"), "we can spy you just the same" ("Shuckin' Sugar Blues"), "I hate to see your peaches tree fail" ("Peach Orchard Mama"), "Just looking at them women makes me want to get my gauge up" ("Southern Woman Blues"), "Hungry as could be, looking at her cakes so fine" ("Bakershop Blues"), and many others.

Only in one case are first-person references not made by Jefferson himself but by another person closely connected to him in the song, when his desperate woman has lost all hope after seeing her electrocuted man in "'Lectric Chair Blues": "I've seen wrecks on the ocean, I've seen wrecks on the deep blue sea." Sometimes, plain first-person narration becomes a personalized acceptance of alienation, as in "Put a string on me and I'll follow you everywhere" ("Match Box Blues") and the similar "Tie a string on my neck and I'll follow you everywhere" ("Teddy Bear Blues"), which might sound merely odd coming from a nondisabled person but which surely take on a bitter aftertaste in the mouth of one who is sight impaired.

The latter imagery and similar images in "Weary Dogs Blues" or "Hot Dogs" may be read as complementary ways to exorcise Jefferson's blindness and disambiguate his ambivalent attitude toward it. "Teddy Bear Blues" turns the roles upside down, depicting the reversed situation of a seeing-eye dog (impersonated by Jefferson) accompanying a blind person (his woman). Using the slang double (if not triple)(6) entendre of dogs as animals and dogs as feet, the complete lyrics of "Weary Dogs Blues" and two phrases from "Hot Dogs"--"But you ought to see `em [dancing feet] now" and "You ought to see me do the Black Bottom now"--sound as statements of independence, as if Jefferson were saying, "I don't need guide dogs, I have two (weary) dogs of my own inside my shoes."

As one can easily imagine, second-person references are not as frequent or as revealing as first- and third-person references. Their comparatively sparse and standardized use is a sign of their minor importance. Linguistically speaking, the pronoun you tends to be used impersonally, associated with the polysemous verb see ("If you see Corinna" in "Corinna Blues") and is implied for grammatical purposes in imperative or conditional sentences. The former may be exemplified by verses conveying no actual visual reference, as "See, see rider, you see what you done done" ("Corinna Blues") or lines whose visualization is not imparted by the verb see but by means of other expressions, such as clean, as in "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean." Without taking repetitions of verse A into consideration, conditionals for advice account for a good 40 percent of all second-person visual innuendos. In addition to the already-quoted lines from "Hot Dogs," such innuendoes include "You ought to see the women shimmy and shake" ("Southern Woman Blues") and "You oughta seen them yellers breaking that fence" ("Fence Breakin' Yellin' Blues"). Only twice is the narrative and thematic development of a story alluded to in a visual reference: "you can't see that black snake at all" ("Black Snake Dream Blues") and "I'm gonna change the way I'm loving, like you have never seen before" ("Christmas Eve Blues"). The phrase "Your hair's all down" ("Stocking Feet Blues" and "Long Lonesome Blues") represents Jefferson's sole snapshot of a woman in the second person.

Singular or plural third-person references are usually found in lines describing Jefferson's woman or women's physical appearance in general in an overt and unconditional mode, but being addressed to someone else, their self-referential visual strength is diminished or entirely lost. Among them are statements such as "She ain't so good-looking, [and her] teeth don't shine like pearls" ("Got the Blues"), "She has feet like a monkey, head like a teddy bear" ("Dry Southern Blues"), "The woman I love about five feet from the ground" and "She's a tailor-made woman" ("Bad Luck Blues"), "She left me this morning with a face that's covered with frowns" ("Easy Rider Blues"), "she's tall as a sycamore tree" ("Deceitful Brownskin Blues"), and many others. But there are also more shadowy or shrewd third-person plural allusions to his blindness, including "Tell me them good-looking womens" ("Dry Southern Blues") and "Tell me you always got a fatmouth following you" ("Booger Rooger Blues"). One more noticeably striking simile to be found in Jefferson's lyrics is the syntagma "like a Indian squaw" in "hair like a Indian squaw" ("Piney Woods Money Mama") and "who looks like a Indian squaw" ("Long Distance Moan").

Some references barely pertaining to any of the three categories occasionally appear. Such variants are found, for example, either in the semblances of mixed first- and third-person inferences such as "I met a nice-looking brownskin" ("Low Down Mojo Blues") and "There were sweet rolls in the window" ("Bakershop Blues") or as patent "identification ... of blindness with the prison cell" (Venturini 1979, 8; my translation), as in "They got walls at the state penitentiary you can't jump; man, they high as the sky" ("Blind Lemon's Penitentiary Blues").

Substantially Thematic Compositions

Reiterated hints at vision within the same piece seem to have a moderate impact on the main subject of the song, and no overall cumulative effect allowing one to speak of a real thematicism is ever reached, even in the most image-studded depictions. This occurs both in blues largely drawn from the tradition, such as "Booger Rooger Blues"--where, besides the statements already quoted, there are two more portrayals ("She's a long tall woman" and "She ain't so good-looking, but, Lord, them dimples is all in her jaw")--and in substantially thematic compositions such as "That Black Snake Moan no. 2" or "Hangman's Blues." In the former, all stanzas plus the spoken introductory statement contain a more-or-less straightforward visual reference; yet blindness is far from being the preeminent topic of the song.

That Black Snake Moan no. 2

   [Spoken:] Well, folks, Lemon is yet looking for a black snake
   mama.

   Mmmm, gonna run that black snake down,
   Oh-oh, gonna run that black snake down,
   I ain't seen my mama since black snake taken her away from
      town.

   Mmmm, black snake is so hard to find,
   Mmmm, black snake is so hard to find,
   I am worried about my mama, I can't keep her off my mind.

   Oh-oh, better find my mama soon,
   Oh-oh, better find my mama soon,
   I woke up this morning, black snake was making easy ruckus
      in my room.

   Black snake is evil, black snake is all I see,
   Black snake is evil, black snake is all I see,
   I woke up this morning, black snake was moving in on me.

   Mmmm, black snake was hanging `round,
   Mmmm, black snake was hanging `round,
   He occupied my living room and broke my furry bunk down.

"Hangman's Blues" (20816-2), which I have examined in detail in a previous study (Monge 1987), is a structurally articulated and linguistically refined masterpiece, but the averting power of its words needs a closer examination. In this blues--just as in other highly thematic lyrics such as "`Lectric Chair Blues," whose formal structure is identical to that of "Hangman's Blues" (see Evans 1999, 1:608-609) and "Pneumonia Blues"--matter-of-fact optical enunciations describing the trial or hanging fancied beforehand are canceled by more focused disruptive visualizations.

Hangman's Blues

   [Spoken:] Thirteenth and Fridays is always my bad luck days.
   Mm, if I could find me a hoodoo doctor, I'd make my getaway.

   Hangman's rope is, honey, so tough and strong,
   I said, hangman's rope is sure tough and strong,
   They got to hang me because I done something wrong.

   I wanna tell you the gallows, Lord's a fearful sight,
   I wanna tell you the gallows, Lord's a fearful sight,
   Hang me in the morning and cut me down at night.

   Oh, the mean old hangman, he's waiting to tighten up that
      noose,
   I said, mean old hangman waiting to tighten up that noose,
   Lord, I'm so scared, I am trembling in my shoes.

   Jury heard my case and it said my hands was red,
   Jurymen heard my case and said my hands was red,
   And judge, he sentenced me be hanging till I'm dead.

   The crowd `round the courthouse, and the time is growing fast,
   Ah, the crowd' round the courthouse, and the time is growing fast,
   Soon a good-for-nothing killer is going to breathe his last.

   Lord, I'm almost dying, gasping for my breath,
   Lord, I'm almost dying, gasping for my breath,
   And that trifling woman, say, will celebrate my death.

The verbally feeble perception of the gallows as a "fearful sight" is shaded by the violence of the rhyming verse "Hang me in the morning and cut me down at night." The seemingly defensive (in fact, accusatory) condemned man's admission of the evidence of guilt--"it said my hands was red," where "red-handed" is a conventional description for "guilty of murder" but also presupposes some sense of color--is brutally supported and physically, though not legally, quashed by the line "And judge, he sentenced me be hanging till I'm dead," which imitates the legal formula used by the judge. The narrative postposition of "The crowd `round the courthouse" is literally and figuratively stifled in the hanged man's throat in the line "a good-for-nothing killer is going to breathe his last." There is no interplay between dim (visual) and crystalline (visible) snapshots; the former are immediately discarded as useless by our minds.

Animals, Objects, and Man

In Jefferson's late recording career, it is the valence no less than the frequency of his visions that should strike us. Especially in this period, he seems to tackle the nightmare of blindness as if he were playing an endless hide-and-seek game, where he alternatively has to track down or avoid being tracked down by an invisible flesh-and-blood enemy who assumes the most varied and changeable living forms, including a huge array of animals such as the following:

* Eagles: "My woman got eyes like an eagle, and she watches me all the time.... Watches me all through the day, watches me all through the night / Keeps them eagle eyes on me till the good Lord brings daylight" ("Eagle Eyed Mama");

* Snakes: "black snake crawling in my room" ("That Black Snake Moan" and "Black Snake Moan") or "Black snake is ceitful, crawling all in my bed," "black snake's lying all in my hall," and "black snake is wearing my clothes" ("Black Snake Dream Blues"), as well as the already-discussed visual references in "That Black Snake Moan no. 2";

* Strangely human cats wearing pants: "I've never seen a cat come home in a pair of pants" ("Cat Man Blues"); and

* Bearcats: "must be that bearcat woman of mine," "Bearcat ain't no wild cat and he don't stay home at night," "Now my bearcat's leaving me, ain't gonna catch my mice no more," "I was standing on the corner when they brought me the bearcat news," and "Now here come my bearcat mama to run me away with them bearcat blues" ("Balky Mule Blues").

Also particularly annoying for Jefferson are insects such as chinch bugs and bedbugs--"that must've been a bedbug, baby, a chinch can't bite that hard" ("That Black Snake Moan" and "Black Snake Moan"); "I wonder if the chinches bite in Beaumont, `bout like they do in Beale Street town," "I had to get sinful with the bed bugs to keep the chinches from taking my life," and "Because the chinches got my number, wrote a speed letter to my wife" ("Chinch Bug Blues")--and mosquitoes--"Mosquitoes all around my screen" ("Mosquito Moan").

Apart from its colloquial usage in "Weary Dogs Blues" and "Hot Dogs," the word dog is meant as the animal in "it's gon' take them twenty-two dogs to run my good gal down" ("Booger Rooger Blues"), "Dog in my backyard, oh lordy, how he can howl" ("Eagle Eyed Mama"), and "you's like a dog that learns another trick" ("The Cheaters Spell"). This animal has a particularly negative connotation in "Got a mad-dog sergeant" ("Prison Cell Blues") and "if you don't love me, please don't dog me around / If you dog me around, I know you'll put me down" ("Shuckin' Sugar Blues"), where the idiomatic verb "to dog" means "to persecute."

Inanimate objects menacingly handled by unfriendly people scare Jefferson, but his handicap (or its transfigured artistic metaphor) is left in the background or simply dismissed. One such example is in Jefferson's last song, "Bootin' Me `Bout," where his lover's father is defined as "the bootingest thing that I most ever seen." Another example is from "Fence Breakin' Yellin' Blues": "You oughta seen them yellers breaking that fence." Whether such creatures or things are meant metaphorically, they all symbolize threatening forces and pose the danger of "sudden bodily harm and death" (Evans 1993, 56-57).

Blind Lemon Jefferson's sharpest observations are also the most indefinite because they overshadow his truest feelings and consequently the slightest nuances of meaning. At least four examples can be ferreted out by only searching for the morpheme man. The first two (and the frailest) are the traditional strophes "There's a house over yonder, painted all over in green / Some of the finest young women that a man most ever seen" ("Old Rounders Blues") and "Mama, don't treat your daughter mean / That's the meanest woman a man most ever seen" ("One Dime Blues"). Because they are somewhat transparent, two additional treats can also be cited: (1) in "Lemon's Cannon Ball Moan," Jefferson parenthetically utters the sentence "Any man feels kind of different when he faces a cannonball," the emphasis clearly being on "Any man," implying "blind or not"; and (2) in "Tin Cup Blues," the co-text (linguistic context) in which the verse "And it's tough to see a man to go the rack and almost starve and die" is inserted leaves no doubt as to who this "man" is. The latter blues deserves special attention because it is treacherous even in its title: one would expect it to be a thematic or autobiographical chronicle of a visually impaired person's daily struggle with his defect, but it reveals itself as a song about any poor man's miserable life during tough times--one more of Jefferson's innocuous and innocent tricks.

Dreams

As is the case for most unsighted people, dreams seem to play a key role in Jefferson's psyche. This is true even though we obviously have no idea of the contents of Jefferson's dreams. It is perhaps a little hazardous to consider his lyrics as real daydreams, but nothing prevents us from following a psychological critical path based on scientific evidence. (Indeed, this is not the first application of cognitive science to a work of art; see Hall and Lynd 1970 and Von Schumann 1935.) When dealing with sightlessness in respect to dreaming, it is generally agreed that the category of the congenitally blind includes "almost all adults who have lost their vision before the age of five" (Blank 1958, 159). The most general among the experimentally ascertained medical facts concerning the way the blind dream is that they lack any visual imagery: "persons born blind or losing sight before age five are entirely lacking in visual imagery: while individuals who become blind between ages five and seven may or may not retain imagery, with those blinded after age seven usually retaining some degree of visual memory.... Persons who are not congenitally blind but who do lose their vision before five years of age rapidly lose all traces of visual memory" (Sabo and Kirtley 1980, 383).

Because Jefferson is more likely to have been born sightless than to have been blinded in childhood (and in any case not after he was seven, as indicated by the 1900 census), we can conclude that he must have had no (or little and deteriorating) visual imagery in his actual dreams. It has also been scientifically shown that, "in almost all respects except the presence of visual-imagery, the dreams of the congenitally blind are formally similar to those of the sighted" (Kerr, Foulkes, and Schmidt 1982, 293; see also Blank 1958, 160-161). Consequently, it is logical to assume that Jefferson's psychological need to visualize must have been so uncontrollable that it was compensated for in his waking life by a profusion of visual references, which--albeit covert--function as a sort of dream surrogate.

The camouflaged nature of such hints, however, has nothing to do with their overabundance. Rather, they are, in the words of H. Robert Blank, the fruit of "the glib use by the blind child or adult of a vocabulary referring to vision and the visual qualities of objects. Sometimes this is a relatively superficial veneer. Too frequently, however, it is not just a matter of unrealistic terminology but an indication of impaired reality testing with a tendency to deny the blindness" (162). All this is consistent with Jefferson's psychological condition and with his physical incapability of having visual dreaming, which is generally "indicative of the blind dreamer's attempting to solve his reality problems" (169). Moreover, it does not contradict the results of scientific investigations showing that "dream content is continuous with waking mentation and behavior; viz., in general, the same motives, conflicts, problems, interests, preoccupations, attitudes, etc., which are manifested in nocturnal dreams also appear in the waking state by way of overt action or covert activities such as fantasy" (Sabo and Kirtley 1980, 384).

A vast literature on how the blind dream is congruent with Jefferson's psychological condition as it is reflected in his lyrics, including frightening and potentially dangerous animals in a room (Blank 1958, 172). The comparatively low incidence of dream references is as misleading as (and in fact is an effect of) his scarce number of direct visualizations. It is remarkable that the only clearly visual dream is present in "Black Snake Dream Blues," while all the other dream quotations have slight visual power and are not inserted in a dream. Recall his woman's response, "Mama dreamt last night, saw a black cat cross your trail," to Jefferson's call in "Long Lonesome Blues." Other instances of dreaming in Jefferson's blues include "I got to dreaming so, I was talking all out of my head" ("Old Rounders Blues"), "I had a dream last night, all about my gal" ("Lonesome House Blues"), and "[It] pops up at every man's door, and it worries him in his midnight dream" ("Competition Bed Blues").

Aside from these direct references to dreaming, other of his blues contain dreamlike images of flying and falling: "I jumped the fast mail rattler, almost went a-flying" ("Gone Dead on You Blues"), "I'm flying to South Carolina, I got to go there this time" ("Long Distance Moan"), "I feel like falling from treetops to the ground" ("Mean Jumper Blues"), and "I'm so disgusted, I done failed right down and cry" ("Disgusted Blues"). Regardless of whether unconsciously meant or linguistically ambivalent, in dreams the images of flying have had a well-known sexual significance in psychoanalysis since Freud's time. No less sensational are the implications in the second actual dreamlike composition, "See That My Grave Is Kept Clean," the nightmare of a person seeing or dreaming his own death and burial.

See the Light

From a semantic point of view, Blind Lemon Jefferson is astonishingly articulate and consistent. The sightless (including the congenitally blind) may not be totally impaired but may possess either light reception only or minimal light and form perception (see Kerr, Foulkes, and Schmidt 1982, 286). In this connection, in Jefferson's idiolect the lexeme light represents perhaps the pithiest expression connected to his disability. Not only does this word unearth one of the pathological effects of blindness on a person, but it is also quite persistent, as it can be found in as many as eleven blues if the still-untraced "Light House Blues," registered May 31, 1928 (Swinton 1997, 7), is included.

The term light must have been of great psychological importance for Jefferson, because its appearance spans nearly three years, a substantial part of his recording career, precisely from March 1926 to January 1929. There are ten instances of Jefferson's use of the term light, which I present in chronological order (cf. App.). "Dry Southern Blues" states, "One train left the depot with a red and blue light behind. / Well, the blue light's the blues, the red light's a worried mind." In the next two occurrences, the term light is given quite a positive value, in the first and third person, respectively: "If I could shine my light like a headlight on some train" ("Wartime Blues") and "Every time she smile, she shine her light on me" ("Shuckin' Sugar Blues"). The fourth instance describes the negative situation of having been "caught easing"--"I ain't gon' leave on the light anymore" ("Chinch Bug Blues")--but the implied "foresighted" and proud resolution of availing himself of darkness as a favorable ally also suggests once more Jefferson's exclusively inner resignation to light as meaning lightlessness. "`Lectric Chair Blues" belongs in blues literature as containing one of the most profound and sarcastic strophes "adopted from the folklore of prison life in the South" (Barlow 1989, 71):

   I wonder why they `lectrocute a man at the one o'clock
      hour at night,
   I wonder why they `lectrocute a man at the one o'clock
      hour at night,
   Because the current is much stronger, then the folks is turned
      out all their lights.

The sixth subtle reference to the word light--"Kid man better watch his footsteps, for the headlight guards are on his way"--is in "Lemon's Worried Blues," and the seventh is in "Mean Jumper Blues"--"he have never turned out his light"--in which Jefferson's and his rival's blindness can be compared. Jefferson's eighth apparently incidental mentioning of light is the introductory "light burning by my bed" ("Lemon's Cannon Ball Moan"), with the variant "Lamp sitting in my kitchen" ("Mosquito Moan"). In the last two instances light is inherent in the use of the word daylight: "until the good Lord broke daylight" ("Happy New Year Blues") and "till the good Lord brings daylight" ("Eagle Eyed Mama").

Sunshine and Colors

Straightforwardly linked to the semantic field of the etymon light are the references in Jefferson's songs to everything glittering, to colors, and to the distinction between night and day. The rate of abstract or concrete mentionings of "(sun)shine," "gold," and so on is numerically not as high as one might expect, but the exactness of the collocation is amazing. Apart from the song title bearing the train name "Sunshine Special," there are no fewer than six perceptions of the shining sun in "how the sun do shine," "They wake me every morning, lordy, with the rising sun," and "I know when the sun gon' shine" ("Weary Dogs Blues"), the traditional verse "the sun's gonna shine in my back door some day" ("Deceitful Brownskin Blues"), "hey mama, that rising sun done gone" ("Change My Luck Blues"), and "Don't matter to me if/whether it's sunshine, I mean, snow, or rain" ("Lock Step Blues"), as well as all the already-quoted references to the word light.

As far as colors are concerned, Jefferson's pictorial achievement is extraordinary. Without going as far as Blind Willie McTell, who was said to have been able to "tell the make, model, year, and even the color of an automobile by feeling the front fender" (quoted in Evans 1979, 7), such kaleidoscopic sensitivity to color is remarkable--although not unusual--in blind musicians. Jefferson's palette covers three of the seven colors of the spectrum and supplies a myriad of chromatic embellishments inseparably associated with vision.

The term blue occurs six times, three times in its accepted meaning of "sad," which is of minor importance in the present context, but it is present as a real color in the stanza "One train left the depot with a red and blue light behind. / Well, the blue light's the blues, the red light's a worried mind" ("Dry Southern Blues"), as well as in "I'm going to make friends with the fish in the deep blue sea" ("Teddy Bear Blues") and the similar "I've seen wrecks on the ocean, I've seen wrecks on the deep blue sea" ("`Lectric Chair Blues").

Next in the spectrum is green. In general, Jefferson's use of green has to do either with money, as in "It's gon' turn your money green" ("Jack o' Diamonds"), or with food, as in "the cook's in the kitchen, picking and fussing over turnip greens" ("Piney Woods Money Mama") and "Pure fat meat and greens" ("Southern Woman Blues"). However, it is also meant as a color in "there's a house over yonder, painted all over in green" ("Old Rounders Blues"), significantly rhyming with "seen," or to describe his inexperienced woman in "Bootin' Me `Bout" ("I love my little brownskin, she's so young and green").

Besides the parallel reference to the color blue in "Dry Southern Blues," the term red springs up in "These are `Hot Dogs.' I mean red hot" ("Hot Dogs"), the descriptive "Got a red-eyed captain" ("Prison Cell Blues"), and "Jury heard my case and it said my hands was red" ("Hangman's Blues").

Outside the spectrum, the most recurrent colors are brown, black, and white. Taking no verse B repetitions or alternate takes into account, I have calculated that Jefferson's lyrics are sprinkled with over forty pleas to different "brown(ie)s," irrefutably his favorite skin color for a woman. All in all, "black" by far predominates over "white," but there is only one reference to his partner's black pigmentation in "You needn't think, because you're black / I'm ain't gonna beg you to take me back" ("Beggin' Back") and one to white people in "White folks in the parlor playing cards" ("Piney Woods Money Mama"). Most of the other "black" or "white" findings are visually weaker, except those that are associated with animals ("black/white horse" or the "black snake" saga) and have superstitious connotations ("black cat/black cat bone"), are related to dancing ("the Black Bottom"), or are popular African-American idioms used for emphasis ("too black bad"). A sly touch stands out: "I'm gonna be your Santa Claus even if my whiskers ain't white" ("Christmas Eve Blues"). The color gray appears twice: "Go and get my black horse and saddle up my gray mare" ("Black Horse Blues") and "I'll never bet on this old gray horse no more" ("Bad Luck Blues").

Symbolically, silver is the color/metal of the spade digging the grave where Jefferson is going to be led down by means of a golden chain: "You may dig my grave with a silver spade / You may lead me down with a golden chain" ("See That My Grave Is Kept Clean"). Metaphorically, gold is the precious metal the musician's girl is made of according to her father, who keeps her in seclusion: "He must've think his gal is made of purest gold" ("Bootin' Me`Bout").

Other loose references to color are "God told Noah by the rainbow sign" in the spiritual "Where Shall I Be?" and two rather flashy mentionings of snow in "That's the gal that walked through the rain and snow for to ease that thing on me" ("Deceitful Brownskin Blues") and "Look how it's snowing" ("Christmas Eve Blues").

Night and Day

Jefferson's many mentions of day and night clearly reflect his abnormal concern about how much light there is and what time of day it is, about what he can make out (or pretends to make out) and what he can only guess is happening. Because these occurrences are so numerous, I will confine myself to quoting only those that more clearly betray a picturesque, if not strictly visual, meaning rather than a solely temporal one. The term day stands for daylight in "I woke up this morning, I kept awoke till the break of day" and "what makes that banty rooster, he keep crowing for the dawn of day" ("Lemon's Worried Blues"), "Lay here easy till the cock pullet crows for day" ("Lemon's Cannon Ball Moan"), and "Reason I call him cat man, he don't come `round in the day" ("Cat Man Blues"). Aside from the overwhelmingly predominant "last night"--more than twenty, even taking no verse B repetitions and alternates into account--the expression "(at) night," already noted in "`Lectric Chair Blues" and "Hangman's Blues," implies darkness as well as time in "Bearcat ain't no wild cat and he don't stay home at night" ("Balky Mule Blues"), "Pour it all in her window and blow her up late at night" ("Dynamite Blues"), "But soon as night come, I goes out for a spell and play" ("Saturday Night Spender Blues"), and "Cat man, cat man, stay away from my house at night" ("Cat Man Blues"), among others.

However, one cannot help noticing that even the most time-related references are often interpolated into a very visually oriented milieu. One example occurs in "Pneumonia Blues"--"Sit out in the street one cold, dark, stormy night / Trying to see if my good gal gon' make it home all right"--where the seemingly incidental "dark night" is more visual than temporal and the verbal locution "trying to see" implies less visual strength than the identical expression in the immediately preceding "Watching my woman, trying to see what she gon' do." In "Mean Jumper Blues," visual narration becomes a nightmare experience: "I believe he's looking for me, he's up all hours at night." All the recurrent mutual correlations of the words day (or morning) and night are revelatory of Jefferson's psychological state of alertness.

The milder associative or contrastive juxtapositions denoting preoccupation with faint or dazzling light usually occur within the same verse (phrase a or b). The following are a few examples: "Paper states it's raining, it has been for nights and days" ("Rising High Water Blues"), "They're barking every morning, they're barking late at night" ("Weary Dogs Blues"), "I was drinking all night [long], got up this morning sloppy drunk" ("Sad News Blues"), "I can't find my mama to ease my pain night or day" ("Disgusted Blues"), and "I miss my baby in the morning, Lord, miss her late at night" ("Empty House Blues"). The oddity is that, when betokening the dialectic opposition "light" versus "darkness," the dichotomy diffuses throughout the stanza (a + b) with a chiaroscuro effect that figuratively causes the pupils of our eyes to contract in the light only to dilate in the dark immediately afterward.

In addition to the second tercet of "Eagle Eyed Mama," there are at least two more examples of this dichotomy: "I go there early in the morning and I goes there late at night / Don't care how late I goes there, he have never turned out his light" ("Mean Jumper Blues") and "Reason I call him cat man, he don't come `round in the day / Come `round after night, steals my cream when I'm away" ("Cat Man Blues"). From the thematic "Big Night Blues," "Saturday Night Spender Blues," and a number of other songs, it is evident that Jefferson was a night owl who enjoyed nightlife and going to parties.

Activities Requiring Eye-Body Coordination

Jefferson frequently makes reference to activities requiring eye-body coordination, such as reading and writing, gambling, and driving. This extensive use should by no means be seen as passive. He is not only personally and actively involved in the actions described, he often paints them as if they were part of a sighted man's daily routine.

In general, the interconnected activities of reading and writing are in the first person, for example, "I thought I'd write but it's the best to telephone" ("Booster Blues"), "Paper states it's raining, it has been for nights and days" ("Rising High Water Blues"), "I went home last night, found a note in my brownskin's door" ("Deceitful Brownskin Blues"), and "I bought that Morning News" ("One Dime Blues"). At times, Jefferson's participation is only inferred; but, as in the juxtapositions of night and day, it is again the semantic coupling of "see"-"write" and the phonic effect of the perfect rhyme "see"-"me" in the same tercet of "Wartime Blues" that convey and complete the idea ("Well, the girl I love and the one I crave to see / Well, she's living in Memphis, and the fool won't write to me").

When the references to writing and reading are introduced by related terms such as letter and mail, they are either less peremptory--as in "When she gets the letter Lemon have wrote a few days out" or "Tell me what's the matter that I can't get no mail" ("Long Lonesome Blues") and "mailman's letter brought misery to my head / I got a letter this morning, my pigmeat mama was dead" ("Gone Dead on You Blues")--or weaker--as in "Because the chinches got my number, wrote a speed letter to my wife" ("Chinch Bug Blues"). The exception to the rule is represented by the partially thematic "Sad News Blues": "I'm sitting here moaning, I have the letter here in my hand," where a letter constitutes the raison d'etre, if not the main subject, of the song.

As for gambling, "Jack o' Diamonds" is a thematic song entirely dealing with card playing. There is a reference "Piney Woods Money Mama" ("White folks in the parlor playing cards") and regretful remarks in "Lock Step Blues" ("I couldn't keep away from bad liquor, wild women, cards and dice") and "Bakershop Blues" ("I wanted to buy me some cakes, but I had shot dice and lost my roll"). Betting is mentioned in "Bad Luck Blues" ("I bet my money and lost it, lord, and it's gone / I'll never bet on this old gray horse no more").

The verb drive is recurrent but never meant literally except in "Booger Rooger Blues" ("I drive to the station, woman, I bid you adieu"), where it is, however, conceivable--actually a certainty in his real life--that someone could have driven him. "D B Blues"---one of the many blues dealing with cars, in this case Jefferson's Dodge does not clearly imply Jefferson's actual driving, but people knowing nothing about his blindness could have supposed that he was the driver.

Moreover, although the lyrics do not always have a specifically visual quality, Jefferson's mastery of technology (telephoning; traveling by car, train, and even submarine; etc.) and his engagement in manifold activities (dancing, drilling for oil, picking peaches, etc.)--whatever their actual meaning--can logically be seen as extensions of his visual imagery. In fact, most of these activities would be hard for a blind person to accomplish or would be considered so by sighted people.

Whatever the contextual meaning, the metaphorical use of all the preceding words and references should be read as the outspoken verbalization of a compressed and repressed signifier acknowledging the condition of blindness. These key words are involuntary admissions of his being restless and feeling "uneasy"--again a typical Jefferson expression--in the attempt to exorcize his living in the "darkness of lightness" (Ellison 1984, 10).

Visual References in the Lyrics of Jefferson and His Colleagues

Because of limitations of space, this study does not engage in a thorough discussion of blindness in other bluesmen or women (see Monge in press); nonetheless, in order to determine whether Jefferson's use of visual reference in his lyrics is merely typical of blues singers and therefore nothing out of the ordinary, I have made a simple statistical comparison between his lyrics and those of a few other sighted as well as blind southern guitar-accompanied bluesmen (see Fig. 1). The musical sources for this comparison were selected from monographic compilations whose tracks are arranged in no special chronological order and have no thematic unity of any sort, thereby responding to random selection criteria. As Figure 1 clearly shows, the percentage of visual references in Jefferson's lyrics is above average, whether likened to sighted or to unsighted singers. Furthermore, the average number of Jefferson's visual references in this sample (2.39) is almost identical to the average found in the complete body of his work (2.48), which was cited above.

Figure 1. Use of visual references in a sampling of bluesmen's lyrics

                                Dates of      Number
                                Recordings    of Visual
                                              References

Blind Musicians
Blind Lemon                     1926-1929     67
 Jefferson *
Blind Willie                    1927-1931,    66
 McTell ([dagger])               1933, 1935
Blind Blake ([double dagger])   1926-1931     23
Blind Boy                       1935-1939     22
 Fuller ([section])

Sighted Musicians
Barbecue Bob ([parallel])       1927-1930     49
Charley Patton (#)              1929-1934     36
Robert Johnson **               1936-1937     26

                                Number        Average
                                of Songs      References
                                Examined      per Song

Blind Musicians
Blind Lemon                     28            2.39
 Jefferson *
Blind Willie                    28            2.35
 McTell ([dagger])
Blind Blake ([double dagger])   28            0.82
Blind Boy                       14            1.57
 Fuller ([section])

Sighted Musicians
Barbecue Bob ([parallel])       28            1.75
Charley Patton (#)              28            1.28
Robert Johnson **               2             0.89

* King of the Country Blues (transcription, Evans and Monge n.d.)

([dagger]) The Early Years (1927-1933) (transcription, Macleod 1988,
76-92), Blind Willie McTell, 1927-1935 (transcription, Macleod 1992,
158-170), and three tracks from Complete Recorded Works in
Chronological Order, Volume 3 (1933-1935) (transcription,
Macleod 1994, 73, 79-81)

([double dagger]) Ragtime Guitar's Foremost Fingerpicker
(transcription, Macleod 1992, 367-378) and six tracks from Complete
Recorded Works in Chronological Order, Volume 1 (1926-1927)
(transcription, Macleod 1994, 212-220), Complete Recorded Works in
Chronological Order, Volume 2 (1927-1928) (transcription, Macleod
1994, 221-230), and Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order,
Volume 4 (1929-1932) (transcription, Macleod 1994, 239-250)

([section]) Truckin' My Blues Away (transcription, Macleod 1992,
312-320)

(||) Brown-Skin Gal and ten tracks selected from Complete
Recorded Works in Chronological Order, Volume 1 (1927-1928), Complete
Recorded Works in Chronological Order, Volume 2 (1928-1929), and
Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, Volume 3 (1929-1930)
(transcriptions, Moore 1978, 29-79)

(#) Founder of the Delta Blues (transcription, Macleod 1988, 266-297)

** The Complete Recordings (transcription, LaVere 1990, 24-45)

It is particularly revealing to compare the visual references of the two most visually oriented blind lyricists included: Blind Lemon Jefferson and Blind Willie McTell. Despite the undeniable similarities in the origin and development of their blindness, their remarkable ability to move around in the world, and their extraordinary general independence, the two musicians' respective ways of reacting to and overcoming their handicap--as reflected in their behavior and artistic life--are diametrically opposed. The contraposition of their textual output reveals McTell's peaceful attitude toward existence (see Evans 1979, 6-24). The following are examples of McTell's blues lyrics.

   I wrote you a letter, mama, put it in your front yard,
   How I'd love to come to see you, but your good man's got
      me barred.

("Writin' Paper Blues," 1927)

   I said she got that mojo and she won't let me see,
   And every time I start to loving, she try to put them jinx on
      me. (7)

("Scarey Day Blues," 1931)

   My heart struck sorrow, tears come rolling down,
   Watched the pallbearers slowly let her down.
   Well, I know that I'll never see her smiling face again, Swear
   to God I love her, poor girl had been my friend.

As illustrated by these examples, McTell's gentle nature shines through his lyrics, where his imagery--although at least as lively and colorful as Jefferson's--is a sign of serene acceptance of blindness. In contrast, Jefferson's psychological stability did not match his exceptional physical endurance. Unlike McTell, et al., he had a need to exorcize blindness through a great number of concealed references, which supports the assertion of James Baldwin (1960, 132): "All art is a kind of confession, more or less oblique. All artists, if they are to survive, are forced, at last, to tell the whole story, to vomit the anguish up."

What Figure 1 cannot show is the intensity and subtlety of these blind singers' visualizations. Compare, for example, McTell's verses above and some of the most incisive verses discovered in the blues of Blake and Fuller.

Blind Blake

   When you see me sleeping, baby, don't you think I'm drunk,
   [Spoken:] No, I'm not drunk, not a bit of it.
   I got one eye on my pistol and the other'n on your trunk.

("Early Morning Blues," 1926)

   It's been a long, long time since I've seen my baby's face,
   And I'd like to see the joker that took my place.

("Hard Road Blues," 1927)

Blind Blake and Papa Charlie Jackson

   Papa Charlie: I know what's the matter with you.
   Blind Blake: What's the matter with me
   Papa Charlie: You ain't seen that pretty little brown today.
   Blind Blake: Well, I couldn't see her but you know how-ow-ow-ow.
   ("Papa Charlie and Blind Blake Talk About It: Part Two," 1929)

Blind Boy Fuller

   Now, it's Lord have mercy, I say, on poor me,
   Lord, it's nothing but trouble in the world that I see.

("Corrine What Makes You Treat Me So," 1937)

   Yeah, went to the station, I sure didn't see no train,
   Say, I didn't see the woman I was loving, no one to call her
      name.

("Painful Hearted Man," 1938)

In these lyrics, the visual pictures are painted by a mixture of vividness and iteration of images. Interestingly, they strengthen the hypothesis that Jefferson's approach to blindness in his lyrics was unusual. In addition to being sharper--if not always more effective--than Jefferson's, these images are also qualitatively diverse in that they mirror a less-restrained and less-tormented way of facing sightlessness by mentioning it unequivocally and not through visual references in a hidden subtext. This is what sets Jefferson's exorcism of blindness apart from normal blues rhetoric.

Conclusion

Especially in Jefferson's more commentative blues, such as "Tin Cup Blues" and "Bakershop Blues," one is sometimes led to wonder whether the subtle device of exorcizing blindness through a series of hidden visual references may be interpreted as a reflection of his instinctive attempt at camouflaging his alienating condition of being black and blind in the harshly racist South of the 1920s or as a cipher message that, after being decoded, might unveil a portion of truth about his much-speculated partial ability to see. In any case, some of his uniformly conceived texts seem to achieve a particularly estranging effect, as if he wanted to mislead his audience. At least from the psychological point of view, this accomplishment is not casual and is obtained by introducing a series of extremely lively, almost visible descriptions, often while handling remarkably impressive themes depicting gloomy, nearly macabre, scenes in order to force the listener to be involved in the narration. By contrast, concealed mentions of eyesight become indistinguishable due to the prominence of these stronger visual images, thus making us all "blind" too. Indeed, the more accurately one examines Jefferson's textual output as a whole, the easier it is to read between the lines and decipher the actual purport of this blind musician's lyrics.

Why have two different, nearly opposed--albeit semantically contiguous--concepts of invisibility and blindness been set side by side in Jefferson's lyrics? Just as Jefferson's frame of mind cannot but be viewed as inexorably linked to his physical condition, it is likewise tempting to interpret his way of fighting it as an instinct of self-preservation. Perhaps it is not superfluous to remember how well developed African Americans' strategies of survival were. Jefferson's vigorous reactions to his impairment have all the features of an attempt to exorcize blindness through invisibility, as if he wanted to become invisible so that no one could perceive his discomfort.

Because Jefferson has been overlooked or judged of moderate importance for so long, it should come as no surprise that the castle of his visual hints was missed or deliberately driven past by the critics, in that he himself--as a result of the repression process obfuscating his own impairment--had wrongly signposted it. These misdirecting road signs have also recently led to fallacious or superficial readings such as the following: "[A] constant thread that ran through Lemon's lyrics was a feeling of disjointed isolation through his relationships with women and his place in the world" (Cortese 1993, 29). But contrary to Cortese's remark and in the light of what has been discussed here, Jefferson's mostly negative, transitory, and exploitative relationships with women in his lyrics-despite their high statistical occurrence and prevalence over sightlessness in his repertoire--are not the prime mover of his alienation but only its logical consequence. Whether surfacing or not, it is blindness that paradoxically works as a sort of guiding thread that runs through all of his repertoire, whatever the theme that Jefferson treats.

Each lyric is like an iceberg whose above-sea-level mass--no matter what insidious dangers it is hiding underneath--shows us the way, allowing us to steer clear of the further perils of the sea (i.e., misinterpretations). Even songs that give no inkling whatsoever of blindness are useful for holding the route during navigation, as they help to guide us by exclusion just because their beacons are turned off.

APPENDIX

Visual References in Blind Lemon Jefferson's Lyrics on Issued
Recordings, Presented Chronologically by Recording Date

Songs (Matrix No.)    Date of Recording   Visual References

"I Want to Be Like    ca. Dec. 1925-      [none]
Jesus in My Heart"    Jan. 1926

"All I Want Is That   ca. Dec. 1925-      Well, the doctor's standing
Pure Religion"        Jan. 1926             looking sad, Hallelu
                                          Well, the train is coming,
                                            done turned the curve,
                                            Hallelu

"Got the Blues"       ca. Mar. 1926       You take a high brown woman
(2471-1)                                  She ain't so good-looking,
                                            teeth don't shine like
                                            pearls
                                          She don't want to look at
                                            you straight

"Got the Blues"       ca. Mar. 1926       You take a high brown woman
(2471-2)                                  She ain't so good-looking,
                                            her teeth don't shine like
                                            pearls
                                          She ain't gon' look at you
                                            straight

"Long Lonesome        ca. Mar. 1926       Women, see you coming
Blues"                                    When she gets the letter
(2472-1)                                    Lemon have wrote a few
                                            days out
                                          Tell me what's the matter
                                            that I can't get no mail
                                          "Mama dreamt last night, saw
                                            a black cat cross your
                                            trail"

"Long Lonesome        ca. Mar. 1926       (Some) women see you coming
Blues"                                    When she gets the letter
(2472-2)                                    Lemon have wrote a few
                                            days out
                                          Won't you tell me what's the
                                            matter, baby, I can't get
                                            no mail
                                          "Mama dreamt last night, saw
                                            a black cat cross your
                                            trail"

"Booster Blues"       ca. Mar. 1926       I thought I'd write but it's
                                            the best to telephone
                                          "Yon' go the train that your
                                            fair brown left here on"

"Dry Southern         ca. Mar. 1926       One train left the depot
Blues"                                      with a red and blue light
                                            behind / Well, the blue
                                            light's the blues, the red
                                            light's a worried mind
                                          Tell me them good-looking
                                            womens on the border
                                            raising sand
                                          She had feet like a monkey,
                                            head like a teddy bear
                                          I got a brown yonder in
                                            Dallas

"Black Horse          ca. Apr. 1926       I wanna laugh and talk with
Blues"                                      a long-haired teasing
                                            brown
                                          I got to have a good talk
                                            with that long-haired
                                            brown of mine
                                          Go and get my black horse
                                          Saddle up my gray mare

"Corinna Blues"       ca. Apr. 1926       The great tall engine and a
(2544-1)                                    little small engineer
                                          If you see Corinna

"Corinna Blues"       ca. Apr. 1926       The great tall engine and a
(2544-2)                                    little small engineer
                                          If you see Corinna

"Got the Blues"       ca. May 1926        You take a high brown woman
(1053)

"Long Lonesome        ca. May 1926        (Some) women see you coming
Blues" (1054)                             When she gets that letter
                                            Lemon have wrote a few
                                            days out
                                          Said baby, what's the
                                            matter, Papa Lemon can't
                                            get no mail
                                          "Fool, a black cat crossed
                                            your trail"
                                          I said, fair brown
                                          Your hair's all down

"Jack o' Diamonds"    ca. May 1926        It's gon' turn your money
(2557-1)                                    green [card playing
                                            pre-supposes vision]

"Jack o' Diamonds"    ca. May 1926        It's gon' turn your money
(2557-2)                                    green [card playing
                                            pre-supposes vision]

"Chock House          ca. May 1926        Don't look for me on Sunday
Blues"                                    She's a fine looking fair
                                            brown

"Beggin' Back"        ca. Aug. 1926       You needn't think, because
                                            you're black

"Old Rounders         ca. Aug. 1926       There's a house over yonder
Blues"                                      painted all over in green
                                          Some of the finest young
                                            women that a man most
                                            ever seen

"Stocking Feet        ca. Nov. 1926       She got hair like a mermaid
Blues" (3066-1)                             on the sea
                                          Said, fair brown
                                          Your hair's all down

"That Black Snake     ca. Nov. 1926       Black snake crawling in my
Moan" (3067-2)                              room
                                          Some pretty mama better
                                            come and get this black
                                            snake soon
                                          Don't like no black snake
                                            nohow
                                          Wonder where's the black
                                            snake gone
                                          Black snake, mama, done
                                            run my darling home

"Wartime Blues"       ca. Nov. 1926       If I could shine my light
                                            like a headlight on some
                                            train / I would shine my
                                            light in Colorado Springs
                                          Well, the girl I love and
                                            the one I crave to see
                                          The fool won't write to me

"Broke and Hungry"    ca. Nov. 1926       So I can leave at once and
(3076-2)                                    hunt me somewhere to go

"Shuckin' Sugar       ca. Nov. 1926       We can spy you just the same
Blues" (3077-2)                           Every time she smile, she
                                            shine her light on me
                                          Oh, say, fair brown
                                          Oh, listen, fair brown
                                          Where that brownskin man
                                            can't go

"Booger Rooger        ca. Dec. 1926       I drive to the station,
Blues"                                      woman, I bid you adieu
                                          Tell me you always got a
                                            fatmouth following you
                                          She's a long tall woman
                                          She ain't so good-looking,
                                            but, Lord, them dimples
                                            is all in her jaw

"Rabbit Foot          ca. Dec. 1926       These nice-looking women
Blues"                                    We'll be seldom seen

"Bad Luck Blues"      ca. Dec. 1926       I'll never bet on this old
                                            gray horse no more
                                          That long-haired brown of
                                            mine
                                          Look around for me
                                          The woman I love about five
                                            feet from the ground
                                          She's a tailor-made woman
                                          I ain't seen my sugar in
                                            three long weeks today

"Black Snake Moan"    Mar. 14, 1927       Black snake crawling in my
(80523-B)                                   room
                                          And some pretty mama had
                                            better come here and get
                                            this black snake soon
                                          I don't like no black snake
                                            nohow
                                          Wonder where's the black
                                            snake gone
                                          That black snake, mama, done
                                            run my darling home

"Match Box Blues"     Mar. 14, 1927       I got a brown across town
(80524-B)

"Easy Rider Blues"    ca. Apr. 1927       With a face that's covered
                                            with frowns
                                          Said, fair brown, what's the
                                            matter now?

"Match Box Blues"     ca. Apr. 1927       Brown 'cross town want to be
(4424-2)                                    my teddy bear
                                          Put a string on me and I'll
                                            follow you everywhere
                                          And a peg leg woman
                                          Sometimes I think I'm some
                                            man these women ain't
                                            never seen

"Match Box Blues"     ca. Apr. 1927       I say, fair brown
(4446-4)                                  I ain't seen my good girl in
                                            three long weeks today

"Rising High Water    ca. May 1927        Backwater rising
Blues"                                    Paper states it's raining
                                          Thousand people stands on
                                            the hill looking down

"Weary Dogs Blues"    ca. May 1927        Oh, lordy, how the sun do
                                            shine
                                          And I can't get some
                                            Charleston with this
                                            brownskin girl of mine
                                          They wake me every morning,
                                            lordy, with the rising sun
                                          I can tell when it's
                                            raining, honey, I know
                                            when the sun gon' shine

"Right of Way         ca. May 1927        I got a high brown girl
Blues"

"Teddy Bear Blues"    ca. June 1927       I'm going to make friends
(4567-1)                                    with the fish in the deep
                                            blue sea
                                          These women in Chicago
                                            likes their fashions and
                                            forms
                                          I said, fair brown
                                          Tie a string on my neck and
                                            I'll follow you everywhere

"Teddy Bear Blues"    ca. June 1927       I'm gonna make friends with
(4567-2)                                    the fish in the deep blue
                                            sea
                                          Come here, pretty mama
                                          These women in Chicago, they
                                            like their fashions and
                                            forms
                                          I said, fair brown
                                          Tie a string on my neck and
                                            I'll follow you everywhere

"Black Snake Dream    ca. June 1927       Black snake is 'ceitful,
Blues"                                      crawling all in my bed
                                          Black snake is killed my
                                            baby dead
                                          Black snake's lying all in
                                            my hall
                                          You can't see that black
                                            snake at all
                                          Black snake is wearing my
                                            clothes
                                          If you let that black snake
                                            go
                                          Black snake crawling
                                          I'm getting tired of that
                                            black snake lying in my
                                            baby's arms

"Hot Dogs"            ca. June 1927       These are "Hot Dogs." I mean
                                            red hot
                                          But you ought to see 'em now
                                          You oughta see me do the
                                            Black Bottom now

"He Arose from        ca. June 1927       [none]
the Dead"

"Struck Sorrow        ca. Sept. 1927      That brown across town
Blues"

"Rambler Blues"       ca. Sept. 1927      Now don't your house look
                                            lonesome
                                          I got a brown in Tennessee
                                          But that brown in Chicago

"Chinch Bug           ca. Oct. 1927       Wrote a speed letter to my
Blues"                                      wife
                                          I ain't gon' leave on the
                                            light anymore

"Deceitful Brown-     ca. Oct. 1927       There's a brown across town
skin Blues"                                 and she's tall as a
                                            sycamore tree
                                          Brownskin girl is 'ceitful
                                          Found a note in my
                                            brown-skin's door
                                          Well, the sun's gonna shine
                                            in my back door some day
                                          Lord, it's heavy-hipped
                                            mama and the meat shakes
                                            on the bone

"Sunshine Special"    ca. Oct. 1927       Because it's taken my brown
                                            from me

"Gone Dead on         ca. Oct. 1927       Mailman's letter brought
You Blues"                                  misery to my head

"Where Shall I Be?"   ca. Oct. 1927       Look over yonder what I see
                                          God told Noah by the rainbow
                                            sign

"See That My          ca. Oct. 1927       See that my grave is kept
Grave's Kept Clean"                         clean
(20074-2)                                 It's two white horses in a
                                            line
                                          You may dig my grave with
                                            a silver spade
                                          You may lead me down with a
                                            golden chain

"One Dime Blues"      ca. Oct. 1927       That's the meanest woman a
                                          man most ever seen
                                          I bought that Morning News

"Lonesome House       ca. Oct. 1927       [none]
Blues"

"Blind Lemon's        ca. Feb. 1928       Take Fort Worth for your
Penitentiary Blues"                         dressing and take Dallas
                                            all for your style
                                          They got walls at the state
                                            penitentiary you can't
                                            jump jump; man, they high
                                            as the sky

"`Lectric Chair       ca. Feb. 1928       Because the current is much
Blues"                                      stronger, then the folks
                                            is turned out all their
                                            lights
                                          I've seen wrecks on the
                                            ocean
                                          I've seen wrecks on the deep
                                            blue sea

"See that My Grave    ca. Feb. 1928       See that my grave is kept
Is Kept Clean"                              clean
(20374-1)                                 It's two white horses in a
                                            line
                                          You may dig my grave with a
                                            silver spade
                                          You may lead me down with a
                                            golden chain

"Lemon's              ca. Feb. 1928       I kept awoke till the break
Worried Blues"                              of day
                                          Kid man better watch his
                                            footsteps, for the head
                                            light guards are on his
                                            way

"Mean Jumper          ca. Feb. 1928       He have never turned out his
Blues"                                      light
                                          I believe he's looking for
                                            me, he's up all hours at
                                            night

"Balky Mule Blues"    ca. Feb. 1928       Now here come my bearcat
                                            mama

"Change my Luck       ca. Feb. 1928       That rising sun done gone
Blues"                                    She ain't long and oh tall
                                          She got Elgin movements from
                                            her head down to her toe

"Prison Cell Blues"   ca. Feb. 1928       Got a red-eyed captain

"Lemon's Cannon       ca. Mar. 1928       Light burning by my bed
Ball Moan"                                Any man feels kind of
                                            different when he faces a
                                            cannonball

"Long Lastin'         ca. Mar. 1928       I wonder why my partner is
Lovin'"                                     sitting around looking sad
                                          It's gonna be too black bad
                                          She's a fair made woman
                                          Ah, she's a dark brownskin
                                          [Spoken:] Too bad, mama. I
                                            mean, too black bad

"Piney Woods          ca. Mar. 1928       Lord, heavy-hip mama
Money Mama"                               Hair like a Indian squaw
                                          And some nice young fair
                                            brown
                                          The cook's in the kitchen,
                                            picking and fussing over
                                            turnip greens
                                          White folks in the parlor
                                            playing cards

"Low Down Mojo        ca. June 1928       I met a nice-looking brown
Blues"                                      skin
                                          My rider['s] got a mojo and
                                            she won't let me see
                                          She's trying to keep that
                                            mojo hid
                                          Papa's got something for to
                                            find that mojo with

"Competition Bed      ca. July 1928       I had a loving brown
Blues" (20749-2)                          Who should I find but my
                                            brown making up my
                                            partner's bed

"Lock Step Blues"     ca. July 1928       I couldn't keep away from
(20750-2)                                   bad liquor, wild women,
                                            cards, and dice

                                          Don't matter to me if it's
                                            sunshine, I mean, snow,
                                            or rain

"Hangman's Blues"     ca. July 1928       I will tell you the gallows,
(20751-2)                                   honey, is a fearful sight
                                          Jurymen heard my case and
                                            said my hands was red
                                          Crowd around the courthouse

"Sad News Blues"      ca. July 1928       I have the letter here in my
(20772-2)                                   hand
                                          My ... wrote to tell me my
                                            baby's got a brand new man
                                          I met a brown last night

"How Long How         ca. July 1928       Watch my baby leave town
Long"                                     But I just can't see no
                                            train

"Lock Step Blues"     ca. Aug. 1928       I couldn't keep away from
(20815-2)                                   wild women, bad liquor,
                                            cards, and dice
                                          Don't matter to me whether
                                            it's sunshine, I mean,
                                            snow, or rain

"Hangman's            ca. Aug. 1928       I wanna tell you the
Blues"                                      gallows, Lord's a fearful
(20816-2)                                   sight
                                          Jury heard my case and it
                                            said my hands was red
                                          The crowd 'round the court
                                            house

"Christmas Eve        ca. Aug. 1928       Look how it's snowing
Blues"                                    I'm gonna change the way
                                            I'm loving, like you have
                                            never seen before
                                          I'm gonna be your Santa
                                            Claus even if my whiskers
                                            ain't white

"Happy New Year       ca. Aug. 1928       Until the good Lord broke
Blues"                                      daylight

"Maltese Cat Blues"   ca. Aug. 1928       And a good dark brownskin

"D B Blues"           ca. Aug. 1928       Come here, brownskin
                                          Ever since I was old enough
                                            to catch a brown

"Eagle Eyed Mama"     ca. Jan. 1929       My woman got eyes like an
                                            eagle and she watches me
                                            all the time
                                          Watches me all through the
                                            day day, watches me all
                                            through through the
                                            night / Keeps them eagle
                                            eyes on me till the good
                                            Lord brings daylight

"Dynamite Blues"      ca. Jan. 1929       [none]

"Digusted Blues"      ca. Jan. 1929       I can't find my mama to ease
                                            my pain night or day

"Competition Bed      ca. Jan. 1929       I have a loving brown
Blues" (21132-1)                          Who should I find but my
                                            brownie making up my
                                            partner's bed

"Sad News Blues"      ca. Jan. 1929       Got a letter here in my hand
(21133-1)                                 My pal wrote to tell me, my
                                            baby's got a brand new man
                                          I met a brown last night

"Peach Orchard        ca. Mar. 1929       I found three kid men
Mama"                                       shaking down your peaches
(21196-1 or 21400)                          tree
                                          I hate to see your peaches
                                            tree fail

"Oil Well Blues"      ca. Mar. 1929       Too black bad

"Tin Cup Blues"       ca. Mar. 1929       And it's tough to see a man
                                            go to the rack

"Big Night Blues"     ca. Mar. 1929       Out last night with wild
(21199-1)                                   women, had to leave with
                                            those big night blues
                                          Turned my face to the door

"Empty House          ca. Mar. 1929       It's tough to be alone when
Blues"                                      I got to have my biscuits
                                            browned

"Saturday Night       ca. Mar. 1929       But soon as night come
Spender Blues"

"That Black Snake     ca. Mar. 1929       [Spoken:] Lemon is yet
Moan no. 2"                                 looking for a black snake
                                            mama
                                          Gonna run that black snake
                                            down
                                          I ain't seen my mama since
                                            black snake taken her away
                                            from town
                                          Black snake is hard to find
                                          Better find my mama soon
                                          Black snake was making easy
                                            ruckus in my room
                                          Black snake is evil, black
                                            snake is all I see
                                          Black snake was moving in
                                            on me
                                          Black snake was hanging
                                            'round

"Big Night Blues"     ca. Aug. 1929       Out last night with wild
(21402-2)                                   women and it give me the
                                            big night blues
                                          I turned my face to the wall

"Bed Spring Blues"    Sept. 24, 1929      [none]

"Yo Yo Blues"         Sept. 24, 1929      [none]

"Mosquito Moan"       Sept. 24, 1929      Lamp sitting in my kitchen,
                                            mosquitoes all around my
                                            screen
                                          I'll be seldom seen

"Southern Woman       Sept. 24, 1929      You ought to see the women
Blues"                                      shimmy and shake
                                          Just looking at them women
                                            makes me want to get my
                                            gauge up

"Bakershop Blues"     Sept. 24, 1929      I'm standing front of this
                                            bakershop
                                          Hungry as could be, looking
                                            at her cakes so fine
                                          There were sweet rolls in
                                            the window, honey, and
                                            light bread and cold
                                          But I had shot dice and lost
                                            my roll

"Pneumonia Blues"     Sept. 24, 1929      Watching my woman, trying
                                            to see what she gon' do
                                          Sit out in the street one
                                            cold, dark, stormy night
                                          Trying to see if my good gal
                                            gon' make it home all
                                            right

"Long Distance        Sept. 24, 1929      Who looks like a Indian
Moan"                                       squaw
                                          I'll use deadly poison to
                                            get my brownie off my mind

"That Crawlin'        Sept. 24, 1929      Crawled from the fireplace
Baby Blues"                                 and he stopped in the
                                            middle of the floor
                                          Said, "Mama, ain't that your
                                            second daddy, standing
                                            back there in the door?"

"Fence Breakin'       Sept. 24, 1929      You oughta seen them yellers
Yellin' Blues"                              breaking that fence

"Cat Man Blues"       Sept. 24, 1929      I've never seen a cat come
                                            home in a pair of pants

"The Cheaters         Sept. 24, 1929      [none]
Spell"

"Bootin' Me           Sept. 24, 1929      I got a brownskin mama, she
'Bout"                                      built right to the ground
                                          He must've think his gal is
                                            made of purest gold
                                          I love my little brownskin,
                                            she's so young and green
                                          Her old man's the bootingest
                                            thing that I most ever
                                            seen

I would like to thank my wife, Enrica, for her patience and constant support; Stefano Danielli and Guido van Rijn for their discographical help; Charley Nilsson, Giangi Cerutti, and Jessica Mathewson and Corinne Kirchner of the American Foundation for the Blind for their bibliographical advice.

(1.) All of Blind Lemon Jefferson's issued titles have so far been reissued on the following Document Records CDs: Blind Lemon Jefferson: Complete Recorded Works in Chronological Order, Volumes 1-4; Too Late, Too Late: Volume 1 (1926-1944); Too Late, Too Late: Volume 3 (1927-1960s); Too Late, Too Late: Volume 4 (1892-1937); Too Late, Too Late: Volume 11 (1924-1939).

(2.) Jefferson was very likely the first unsighted professional artist to record both spirituals and blues ("I Want to Be Like Jesus in My Heart" / "All I Want Is That Pure Religion" and "Got the Blues" / "Long Lonesome Blues"), as well as one of the first who mixed the two genres in the same song ("See That My Grave Is Kept Clean"). Ray Charles can be considered the first blind performer to blend the two genres into a unique style.

(3.) Carter's phrase is unclear; he probably means that Lemon Jefferson used to sing in the creek bottom nearby and Crook's Creek.

(4.) It has been surmised that "[b]oth Jefferson and McTell display vivid visual imagery in their lyrics, perhaps stemming from, to borrow a phrase from Stevie Wonder, `inner visions'" (Groom 1991).

(5.) This watershed separating Jefferson's recording career into two halves was first brought to light and examined by David Evans (1987, 75-80). Evans (1999, 1:607) summarizes: "In 1926 and 1927, [Jefferson's] blues are made up mostly of traditional verses without thematic consistency or development through a whole song. Rather, they present various contrasts of theme, attitude, and mood in the manner of many other folk blues.... In 1928 and 1929, Jefferson's blues were much less improvisational in character. His lyrics were almost entirely thematic throughout a song and clearly had been rehearsed."

(6.) In black slang, the word dogs has a sexual meaning when a woman "puts the dogs on" a man during sexual intercourse--that is, she increases her passion, typically inducing orgasm. For an example in the blues, see Bukka White's "Sic `Em Dogs On." The last stanza and final spoken comment in Jefferson's "Weary Dogs Blues" may also have such a meaning:

   Worried dogs in my young days, worried dogs is all I crave,
   Worried dogs in my young days, worried dogs is all I crave,
   Sometime I think worried dogs is going to carry me to my grave.

   [Spoken:] Look out there, man; don't let that dog bit me.

(7.) Jefferson sings a variant of this stanza in "Low Down Mojo Blues" (see Monge in press).

DISCOGRAPHY

Blake, Blind. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 1 (1926-1927). Document Records DOCD-5024.

--. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 2 (1927-1928). Document Records DOCD-5025.

--. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 4 (1929-1932). Document Records DOCD-5027.

--. Ragtime guitar's foremost fingerpicker. Yazoo Records L-1068.

Fuller, Blind Boy. Truckin' my blues away. Yazoo Records L-1060.

Hicks, Robert [Barbecue Bob]. Brown-skin gal. Agram Blues AB 2001.

--. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 1 (1927-1928). Document Records DOCD 5046.

--. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 2 (1928-1929). Document Records DOCD 5047.

--. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 3 (1929-1930). Document Records DOCD 5048.

House, Eddie "Son." Preachin' the blues. Son House and the Delta blues singers: Complete recorded works (1928-1930). Document Records DOCD-5002.

Jefferson, Blind Lemon. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 1 (1925-1926). Document Records DOCD-5017.

--. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 2 (1927). Document Records DOCD-5018.

--. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 3 (1928). Document Records DOCD-5019.

--. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 4 (1929). Document Records DOCD-5020.

--. King of the country blues. Yazoo Records L-1069. Johnson, Robert. The complete recordings. Columbia Records C2K-46222.

McTell, Blind Willie. Complete recorded works in chronological order, volume 3 (1933-1935). Document Records DOCD-5008.

--. The early years (1927-1933). Yazoo Records L-1005.

--. Blind Willie McTell, 1927-1935. Yazoo Records L-1037.

Patton, Charley. Founder of the Delta blues. Yazoo Records L-1020.

Too late, too late, volume 1 (1926-1944). Document Records DOCD-5150.

Too late, too late, volume 3 (1927-1960s). Document Records DOCD-5276.

Too late, too late, volume 4 (1892-1937). Document Records DOCD-5321.

Too late, too late, volume 11 (1924-1939). Document Records DOCD-5625.

White, Bukka. Sic `em dogs on. The complete sessions 1930-1940. Travelin' Man TM CD 03.

REFERENCES

Alyn, Glen. 1994. I say me for a parable: The oral autobiography of Mance Lipscomb, Texas bluesman. New York: W. W. Norton, 1993. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press.

Baldwin, James. 1960. The precarious vogue of Ingmar Bergman. Esquire 53, no. 4 (April): 128-132.

Barlow, William. 1989. Looking up at down: The emergence of blues culture. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Blank, H. Robert. 1958. Dreams of the blind. Psychoanalytic Quarterly 27: 158-174.

Brown, Roger. 1975. Recording pioneer Polk Brockman. Living Blues no. 23 (September/October): 31.

Calt, Stephen. [1984]. Liner notes, King of the country blues. Yazoo Records L-1069.

Carter, Hobart. 1999. Interview with David Evans and Luigi Monge. Wortham, Tex., March 15.

Charters, Samuel. 1959. The country blues. New York: Rinehart.

--. [1967] 1991. The blues makers. New York: Oak Publications, 1967. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press. (Original title, The bluesmen: The story and the music of the men who made the blues.)

Cortese, Vinny. 1993. Blind Lemon's blues. Blues Revue Quarterly no. 9 (Summer): 26-33.

Cox, Quince. 1999. Interview with David Evans and Luigi Monge. Wortham, Tex., March 14.

Dance, Helen Oakley. 1987. Stormy Monday: The T-Bone Walker story. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press.

Dixon, Willie, and Don Snowden. 1989. I am the blues: The Willie Dixon story. London: Quartet Books.

Ellison, Ralph. 1984. Invisible man. New York: Random House, 1952. Reprint, Hammondsworth, Middlesex, England: Penguin Books.

Evans, David. 1979. Booklet, Atlanta blues 1933. John Edwards Memorial Foundation JEMF-106.

--. 1987. Big road blues: Tradition and creativity in the folk blues. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1982. Reprint, New York: Da Capo Press.

--. 1993. Goin' up the country: Blues in Texas and the deep South. In Nothing but the blues, edited by Lawrence Cohn, 33-85. New York: Abbeville Press.

--. 1999. Jefferson, Blind Lemon, essays. In International dictionary of black composers, edited by Samuel A. Floyd Jr., 1:607-609. Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn.

Evans, David, and Luigi Monge. n.d. Unpublished transcription, held by the author. Govenar, Alan. 1988. Meeting the blues. Dallas: Taylor Publishing.

--. 1991. That black snake moan: The music and mystery of Blind Lemon Jefferson. In Bluesland: Portraits of twelve major American blues masters, edited by Pete Welding and Toby Byron, 16-37. New York: Dutton.