10 (mostly) white blues songs from my record collection

The Blues is a craft or a practice, not a genre. It came from Black folks, who've had to endure enough pain and suffering for the history of the world in the last 400 odd years. But white folks have picked up on it too—the idea that you can practice the blues, and the pain you've got will be revealed for the diversion that it is. It's not unreal, just something you have to embrace, instead of rejecting. Here are the tunes that have made me embrace my pain.

''No Surprises'' by Radiohead
on the Album OK Computer

I only liked this song until I saw the video. It has a plaintive melody and some pretty lyrics, and it provided a nice quiet moment to the very dark second half of OK Computer . But when I saw the video with Thom Yorke's head slowly sinking, and heard him sing ''Such a pretty house and such a pretty garden'', I was moved to tears. One of the many sadnesses of modern life is that our only escape is to drown into the soft silence of suburbia.

''Nothing'' by Reel Big Fish
on the Album Turn The Radio Off

The summer that I heard this song, I was living in a basement in Des Moines, Iowa, where I didn't know anybody, working at a job I hated because it paid good money. My social contacts were almost zero, and my only solace was driving around Des Moines, blasting CDs in my worn out Ford escort. The first half of the song is straight-up punk lamentation, but then it slows down into a nice bigbeat riff and even though it all sucked, I knew, as the Aaron Barrett says, that ''it's gonna be alright'' because ''I don't fucking care anymore''. After that, the summer was over before I even noticed.

''Oh Sweet Nuthin'' by The Velvet Underground
on the Album Loaded: Fully Loaded Edition (US Release)

It sounds way older than it's thirty years. What a great piece of old-time lamentation, in the tradition of ''I can't be satisfied'' and ''Walking Blues''. This is one of the truest blues songs ever written by white folks. Who else but the Velvets?

''Whiskey Bottle'' by Uncle Tupelo
on the Album No Depression

The mournful country intro and verse belie the fiery-loud chorus. Just like drinking alone—you start out sipping and talking slowly, smiling, maybe even singing a little, and then your inhibitions go, and you scream at all the contradictions in your life, break and smash your things, cry and bleed and wonder how your going to get through. But ''somehow life goes on in a place so insane''.

''Have you ever been lonely?'' by R.L. Burnside
on the Album A Ass Pocket Of Whiskey [Explicit]

I have no idea how the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion found R.L. Burnside. New York hipsters honking out blues tributes tossed into a room with a Mississippi Hill country moaner once convicted of murder—there's almost no way it could've worked, but on this song, they just play until they bleed. R.L. and Jon have this weird conversation about what it means to be lonely, and in between, they play their guitars like they're on fire; they scream and wail and revel in the pain of looking around the room and seeing not a soul. The answer to the question of the title is: ''Yeah, a lotta times, you know?''

''Respect is Due'' by the Dismemberment Plan
on the Album The Dismemberment Plan Is Terrified

When I saw these guys live last years, they refused to play this song because it was ''a twelve minute dirge'', and they were out to have a good time on their last tour. I have to admit that the song gets a little long at times, and it's certainly not something I listen to very often anymore, since I've found myself in a fairly stable adult relationship. Still, I've had my heart broken enough for reasons I didn't understand to know what it means when Travis Morrison says ''If I ever let down the walls that protect me from you, I could say respect is due. But not in this lifetime.''

''Jesus doesn't want me for a sunbeam'' by The Vaselines, performed by Nirvana on the Album MTV Unplugged in New York

See my previous post about covers. Nirvana were great in part because they loved paying homage, and they had no pretensions about where their influences came from. When Cobain says that this was based on an old Christian song, he may have been right, but what matters is that the song sounds old—even eternal. There's always been that tension in the blues of fervent belief and feeling as though God has abandoned you. The Vaselines, and Nirvana, made it clear that even though they were beyond divine help, they didn't care. In an age when fundmantalist religions seem to be asking our lives of us every second of the day, this song brings home that our relationship with God or his son, or whoever is always way more than dogma.

''Divorce Song'' by Liz Phair
on the Album Exile In Guyville

I lived part of this song, from the other end. An ex-girlfriend of mine, who I loved more than my own life at the time, broke up with me the day before we were going on a weekend vacation to Maine. I had rented a bed and breakfast for us to stay in, and shelled out a bunch of money for gas and food and whatnot. Needless to say, I was a pathetic wreck the whole weekend, pestering and bothering (and far worse) this girl who wanted nothing more than to enjoy the outside in peace, and not be bothered by my constant questions about why she didn't want me anymore. It's not harder to be friends than lovers, it's almost impossible, and the worst thing for someone to figure out is that I was as much responsible for my own pain that weekend as she was. Now that's the blues.

''Good Feeling'' by Violent Femmes
on the Album Violent Femmes

The viola solo on this record is one of the most beautiful sections of music ever committed to tape. It says more than the words ever could. As the Buddhists say, existence is suffering; the constant wheel of desire and fulfilment make always wish that the good feeling would stay ''just a little longer'', but it never does. That's why this is great blues—the blues at its best is a constant reminder that we create the world around us. Our own suffering is caused by our own desire, and the pain the blues roots us in is always tempered by the knowledge that we have at least some power to see the world as something that we can change, and that we don't have to take part in.