Albert Murray discovered that the suicide rate among slave owners was higher than the suicide rate among slaves, and this is true.
Of that, Vonnegut wrote that "the blues can’t drive depression clear out of a house, but it can drive it into the corners of any room where it’s being played." (1)
There are a lot of people who have died, I think, for want of the blues. Who... strive so much for something they can’t see or taste other than a memory that they don’t quite remember. The blues don’t necessarily help that feeling, but at least they create a space that says, "Life hurts." In the military they would say, get a helmet, but underneath the wing of a soft voice and a guitar, there isn’t any response needed. The message can simply be that. Life hurts. It’s there, it happens, there’s no message, no band-aid, no perfect seamless world where things are done right. People struggle so much with that, I think. All around, trying to be better, faster, smarter, brighter, shinier, and it’s not going to fucking happen. Own it.
The blues is like that. It’s an owning of pain, sharing it with whoever is there, or no one. It’s not played for other people, it just... is.
1. A Man Without a Country, Kurt Vonnegut. Seven Stories Press, 2005.
I really like Kurt Vonnegut. I was sad when I found out he died. I still really like the blues. This was written eleven days before my 18th birthday.