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dragonlady7Man, I'm quiet tonight. (posts umpteenth nonsense entry)
(Is someone finding the writing slow going? Shakes head no, says "welll...")
Is it just me, or does the phrase "to ease [one's] troubled mind" have some deeper significance?
It is in a ton of songs, and by "a ton" I mean like, every other blues or blues-influenced song ever freaking written.
It's in Layla. It's in a Tony Joe White song. It's in a Twinemen song. It's in a Susan Tedeschi song. It's in a Bad Company song. And that's just the songs I've heard today. Google suggests it's in a whole lot more songs.
In all of them but the Susan Tedeschi song, it seems to refer to sex. As in,"won't you ease my troubled mind" meaning, 'won't you sleep with me please?"
In the Susan Tedeschi song, she's talking about killing a man, so i ain't real sure what she's implying. Oh no wait-- that's the first verse-- "gonna love my baby, gonna / ease his troubled mind"-- so I assume she means the same thing. In the last verse, when she finds out he's been unfaithful, she says she's gonna "give that man / a troubled mind" and also states that he "won't get away alive."
Which adds a pretty interesting dimension. I mean...
To ease someone's troubled mind = to have sex with them. But:
To give someone a troubled mind = to threaten them with death.
I'd never really considered the two to be such polar opposites, but I suppose in blues there's not really much gray in the middle. Either you love her or you done killed her or you goin' to kill her or you goin' to drink yourself into a stupor.
So I suppose those sorts of phrases are a helpful shorthand in which to express one's emotional cripplehood. I mean, why not? It's blues, man.
This is why I love the blues.
(Is someone finding the writing slow going? Shakes head no, says "welll...")
Is it just me, or does the phrase "to ease [one's] troubled mind" have some deeper significance?
It is in a ton of songs, and by "a ton" I mean like, every other blues or blues-influenced song ever freaking written.
It's in Layla. It's in a Tony Joe White song. It's in a Twinemen song. It's in a Susan Tedeschi song. It's in a Bad Company song. And that's just the songs I've heard today. Google suggests it's in a whole lot more songs.
In all of them but the Susan Tedeschi song, it seems to refer to sex. As in,"won't you ease my troubled mind" meaning, 'won't you sleep with me please?"
In the Susan Tedeschi song, she's talking about killing a man, so i ain't real sure what she's implying. Oh no wait-- that's the first verse-- "gonna love my baby, gonna / ease his troubled mind"-- so I assume she means the same thing. In the last verse, when she finds out he's been unfaithful, she says she's gonna "give that man / a troubled mind" and also states that he "won't get away alive."
Which adds a pretty interesting dimension. I mean...
To ease someone's troubled mind = to have sex with them. But:
To give someone a troubled mind = to threaten them with death.
I'd never really considered the two to be such polar opposites, but I suppose in blues there's not really much gray in the middle. Either you love her or you done killed her or you goin' to kill her or you goin' to drink yourself into a stupor.
So I suppose those sorts of phrases are a helpful shorthand in which to express one's emotional cripplehood. I mean, why not? It's blues, man.
This is why I love the blues.
