Breedloves's Folk Songs

ST LOUIS BLUES

 

ST LOUIS BLUES
St. Louis Blues” is an American popular song composed by William Christopher Handy
in the blues style. It remains a fundamental part of jazz musician’s repertoire. It was also
one of the first blues songs to succeed as a pop song; it has been performed by numerous
musicians of all styles from Louis Armstrong and Bessie Smith to Glenn Miller and the
Boston Pops Orchestra. It has been called “the jazzman’s Hamlet“. Published in
September of 1914 by Handy’s own company, it later gained such popularity that it
inspired the dance step the Foxtrot“. The version with Bessie Smith and Louis
Armstrong on cornet was inducted in the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1993. The 1929
version by Louis Armstrong & His Orchestra (with Henry “Red” Allen) was inducted
there in 2008.
I hate to see that evening sun go down,
I hate to see that evening sun go down,
‘Cause my lovin’ baby done left this town.
If I feel tomorrow, like I feel today,
If I feel tomorrow, like I feel today,
I’m gonna pack my trunk and make my getaway.
Oh, that St. Louis woman, with her diamond rings,
She pulls my man around by her apron strings.
And if it wasn’t for powder and her store-bought hair,
Oh, that man of mine wouldn’t go nowhere.
I got those St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be,
Oh, my man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea,
Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me.
I love my man like a schoolboy loves his pie,
Like a Kentucky colonel loves his rocker and rye
I’ll love my man until the day I die, Lord, Lord.
I got the St. Louis blues, just as blue as I can be, Lord, Lord!
That man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea,
Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me.
I got those St. Louis blues, I got the blues, I got the blues, I got the blues,
My man’s got a heart like a rock cast in the sea,
Or else he wouldn’t have gone so far from me, Lord, Lord!

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