The Early 1900s

The following songs by "Big Bill" Broonzy, Walter Davis, and Robert Johnson detail the lives of a a southern black man, who's plot in life revolves around life on the farm and dealing with social adversity both internally and with their communities.  To apply a single autobiographical concept to each of these songs, or any song used in this blog for that matter, is nearly impossible.  Their identities are shaped by multiple aspects of their lives both socially and racially.  Smith and Watson explain that identities that require many concepts to define are Intersectional.  They explain, “We cannot…just add the effects of one identity to those of another to understand the position from which someone speaks, for effects of a multiplicity of identities are not additive but intersectional. To speak autobiographically as a black woman is not to speak as a ‘woman’ and as a ‘black,’ It is to speak as a black woman” (RA 41). Subsequently, it is impossible to define these artists as just black, men, farmers, or oppressed human beings.  It requires all of these aspects to analyze and contextualize the lives of the men and their lyrics.  

In “Going Back to My Plow,” “Big Bill” Broonzy (William Lee Conley Broonzy) explains his plight in relation to his wife and his life as a black farmer:

I was a plow hand for forty years, I swore I would never plow no more,

Now I’m a married man now, oh Lord, there ain’t no more more so and so

I’m going back to my plow, now a woman is the cause of it all,

Now she says, “Bill, if you ain’t raising cotton, oh Lord, we’ll have no money in the fall

Farming is all right, little girl, if you knows just what to do,

‘Cause it killed my old grandpap, oh Lord, I declare I’m going to make it kill me too. 

Like Broonzy, Walter Davis'  “Cotton Farm Blues” expresses the stagnant life of a black man in the South:

I’m just from the country, never been in your town before,

Lord, I’m broke and hungry, ain’t got no place to go.

I was raised in the country, I been there all my life,

Lord, I had to run off and leave my children and wife.

Robert Johnson – “Crossroad Blues”

I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knee,

Asked the Lord above have mercy, save poor Bob if you please.

Standing at the crossroads, I tried to flag a ride,

Didn’t nobody seem to know me, everybody pass me by.

The sun going down, boy, dark gonna catch me here,

I haven’t got no loving sweet woman, that loves and feels my care.