Note 21 — Chapter II · THE BLUES: WORKADAY SORROW SONGS

Any one who is acquainted with the slang and vulgarity of the lower class Negro will suspect immediately that there are often double meanings in titles like those listed here. Such is the case. Negro songs writers and phonograph artists usually have had intimate acquaintance with Negro life in all of its forms, and they have doubtless come across many a song which was too vulgar to be put into print, but which had certain appealing qualities. Often a melody was too striking to be allowed to escape, so the writer fitted legitimate verses to it and, if it was at all possible, preserved the original title. Thus it comes about that many of the popular Negro songs of today—and white songs, too, as for that—have titles that are extremely suggestive, and are saved only by their perfectly innocuous verses. The suggestiveness of the titles may also be one explanation of why these songs have such a tremendous appeal for the common folk, black and white. It may be that in these songs, whitewashed and masked though they be, they recognize old friends.