Sex, Drugs, and Memphis Blues

When one thinks of the blues, most connotations of the word imply a sense of depression, angst, and hardship.  However, in many blues songs, themes such as sex and alcohol are prominent: "The most sensational blues of the 1920s-30s were about sex, its pleasures and pitfalls" (457).  As these ideas were often sensationalized, they were popular themes for many Memphis Blues era artists.  However, besides the glorification of sex, addiction to alcohol or drugs was a huge problem facing African Americans in the early 1900s.

In “Mean Tight Mama” Sara Martin offers a glimpse into her sexual life:

Now my hair is nappy and I don’t wear no clothes of silk,

But the cow that’s black and ugly has often got the sweetest milk.

I’m a mean tight mama, with my mean tight mama blues.

Autobiography: 

Martin's lyrics are unique in that they include both racial and sexual glimpses into her life.  Her economic status is conveyed through the statement that her hair is nappy and she can't afford expensive clothing.  In the next line, she compares herself to a big, ugly black cow that even though it may not be as aesthetically pleasing, its produce is the "sweetest." In just three lines, Martin is able to convey her status as a poor African American women, yet her ability to perform sexually is unhindered. Smith and Watson's concept of the Ideological 'I'  seems to apply to Martin's lyrics.  The Ideological “I” is “steeped in ideology, in all the institutional discourses through which people come to understand themselves and to place themselves in the world” (76). Martin presents her sexuality in context with her social status.  The use of 'I' in the lyrics is applied with an understanding of her social background and institutional discourse of which she comes to understand her current state of being.

Bessie Smith was a popular Memphis Blues artist in the 1920s.  In "Me and My Gin" Smith writes of her long time addiction to alcohol:

When I’m high ain’t nothin I won’t do,

Keep me full of liquor and I’ll be nice to you.

I don’t want no clothes, and I don’t need no bed,

I don’t want no pork chops, just give me gin instead. (464)

Autobiography: 
Smith's lyrics reveal her dependency on alcohol.  The severity of her addiction is articulated through the admittance of desiring alcohol over clothes, food, and shelter.  Though this is rather dramatic, Smith details how her alcoholism has an impact in every aspect of her life.  Smith and Watson discuss the idea of addiction in autobiography which they term "addiction narrative." This is “a kind of conversion narrative in which the reformed subject narrates his or her degeneration through addiction to something – alcohol, drugs, sex, food, the Internet” (RA 254). Obviously, Internet does not apply in this case, but Smith's lyrics do suggest that she has experienced a social degeneration through her addiction to alcohol.

Like Bessie Smith, artist Jimmy Gordon experiences similar addiction problems in his song "Bleeding Heart Blues":


Well, I drink to keep from worrying and I laugh to keep from crying,

I keep a smile on my face so the public won’t know my mind.

Some people thinks I am happy but they sho’ don’t know my mind,

They see this smile on my face, but my heart is bleeding all the time.

Autobiography: 
Being another variation of an addiction narrative, Gordon's problems rest more upon the troubles of happiness.  With Smith's lyrics revolved around being an alcoholic alone, Gordon's drinking is primarily a form of escapism.  His dependency on alcohol is a result of depression - his social life is plagued by his inability to be happy and thus, turns to alcohol to repress his true emotions.