The Weary Blues
In this classic poem by Langston Hughes we feel the pride he had in his people juxtaposed with the sadness he felt in the hardships they faced and endured. The footage overlaying his powerful words harkens back to the Harlem Renaissance - the point in time when black America was beginning to find its voice and identity within the complex landscape that was the American experiment; a point in time when even white America could no longer deny the depth, complexity and beauty of its culture.
Langston Hughes descended from a most impossible family tree; both of his paternal great-grandmothers were enslaved African Americans while both of his paternal great-grandfathers were white slave owners. As his mother and father would drift in and out of his life, it would be his grandmother, who would become the driving force in his life. One of the first African American women to graduate college in the United States she who would instill in him a strong sense of racial pride and a responsibility to help his people.
Hughes poetry portrays the struggles and joys of working-class blacks in America. He would become one of the leaders of the Harlem Renaissance - an intellectual, social, and artistic explosion in the 20’s. And he would succeed in one of the movements primary goals - the realization of purely African-American forms of expression such as his groundbreaking “Jazz Poetry”.
The Weary Blues
Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
He did a lazy sway. . . .
He did a lazy sway. . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan-
“Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
And put ma troubles on the shelf.”
Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more-
“I got the Weary Blues
And I can’t be satisfied.
Got the Weary Blues
And can’t be satisfied-
I ain’t happy no mo’
And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.
He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.
Recited by: Allen Dwight Callahan
Footage:
Moon Over Harlem / Directed by Edgar G. Ulmer
Rhythm & Blues Revue / Directed by Joseph Kohn, Leonard Reed
Music:
Groovy Drums / Composer: Pagnini, Umberto
ST James Infirmary / Composers: Lenart, Paul; Novick, Bill
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