The+Weary+Blues


 * STUDY SHEET**

**__POEM__**

code 1.Droning a drowsy syncopated tune, 2.Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon, 3.    I heard a Negro play. 4.Down on Lenox Avenue the other night 5.By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light 6.    He did a lazy sway. . . 7.    He did a lazy sway. . . 8.To the tune o' those Weary Blues. 9.With his ebony hands on each ivory key 10.He made that poor piano moan with melody. 11.    O Blues! 12.Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool 13.He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool. 14.    Sweet Blues! 15.Coming from a black man's soul. 16.    O Blues! 17.In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone 18.I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan-- 19.     "Ain't got nobody in all this world, 20.       Ain't got nobody but ma self. 21.       I's gwine to quit ma frownin' 22.       And put ma troubles on the shelf."

23.Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor. 24.He played a few chords then he sang some more-- 25.    "I got the Weary Blues 26.       And I can't be satisfied. 27.       Got the Weary Blues 28.       And can't be satisfied-- 29.       I ain't happy no mo' 30.       And I wish that I had died." 31.And far into the night he crooned that tune. 32.The stars went out and so did the moon. 33.The singer stopped playing and went to bed 34.While the Weary Blues echoed through his head. 35.He slept like a rock or a man that's dead. code

**__CONTEXT__**

"The Weary Blues" was the first poem which Langston Hughes got an award. His first book of poems, //The Weary Blues// (1926), won him all kinds of awards, money, and prestige. In addition to this:


 * Langston Hughes was traveled to Africa and also lived in Paris around the time he wrote "The Weary Blues."
 * In 1924, Hughes won //Opportunity// magazine's literary contest for "The Weary Blues."
 * Langston Hughes was working as a bus-boy in Washington, DC when he snuck three poems into the bag of a famous poet, Vachel Lindsay. That sealed the deal in 1925, and Hughes became a hit.
 * Hughes had strong associations with radical political movements like black nationalism, socialism, and radical democracy. Senator McCarthy forced him to testify in 1953 before the House Committee on Un-American Activities for his highly political poetry.

**__SUMMARY__**

The poem starts with a speaker discussing a piano player he heard a couple nights ago. This piano player was playing a slow blues song with all his body and soul and the man starts to really get into the sad music. Line 19 is when the first verse to the song is introduced. The musician is singing about how he's going to put his worries aside even though he is unhappy. The second verse talks about how nothing can alleviate his sorrow, and he wishes he was dead. The musician plays on late into the night and when he finally goes to bed, he sleeps like the dead person.

**__ANALYSIS__**

// **Music** // **What it does:** Music is a metaphor for abstract feelings that we can't say straight out. Blues and jazz are all about expressing those complex emotions through sound and tone **Examples:**


 * Line 1: The long //O// sounds of "droning" and "drowsy" mimic a yawning sound that stands in contrast to the hard //T// s and //C// s of "syncopated tune" that mimic the syncopated rhythms of ragtime music. Also, those two beginning //D// sounds are called alliteration.
 * Lines 6-7: Like the //O// s in Line 1, the long //A// s of "a lazy sway" can really get drawn out in a reading.
 * Lines 23: "Thump, thump, thump" is an example of onomatopoeia, in that it mimics a foot hitting the floor.

// **Personification** // **What it does:** Describes an object in a way that it becomes a temporary character in the narrative. **Examples:**


 * **Lines 10 and 18:** The musician is making the piano moan…but pianos don't really moan. It can't even really make a noise that can be confused as a moan. However, the sound of the piano makes the speaker //feel// like the piano is moaning.

// **Juxtaposition** // **What it does:** Directly contrasts to very different objects to shed light on their differences and similarities **Example:**
 * **Line 14:** The sad, rag-wearing fool that is the blues/the musician has a sweetness to it that captures the joy of letting out some emotion every now-and-then.

// **Free Verse** // **What it does:** It breaks out of the strict rhythm and rhyme patterns. **Examples:** Hughes uses more consistent rhythm in the song lyrics; but, outside of that, the language follows a natural rhythm of speech.

// **Title** // **Explanation:** "The Weary Blues" is the title of a ragtime song that Artie Matthews wrote in 1915. It's possible that Hughes could have taken the title from Matthews; the song was already popular by the time Hughes wrote his poem. Hughes wrote in an autobiography that he took the song lyrics in "The Weary Blues" from the first blues song that he ever heard.

// **Pop Culture References** //
 * Ragtime music originated by Scott Joplin
 * "The Weary Blues" by Artie Matthews
 * Lenox Avenue

//** Themes **//
 * Language and communication ie. Jargon and slang
 * Suffering
 * Race
 * Art and Culture

By: Madison Todd