Maria N. Garcia
Unit 2
Question set: How was blues music incorporated into Langston Hughes poems? What did
African Americans talk about in blues music? How is blues music connected to the Harlem
Renaissance?
For this essay, I wanted to find more information on blues music since a lot of Langton
Hughes poems are about the blues. In the poem “Lament over the Love”, a woman is talking
about her love for a man being so deep that she doesn’t want to live anymore. When it comes to
blues music, African Americans tend to talk about a lost loved one, their hardships and their
feelings in general. My research revolved around how blues music was created and what the
relevance of blues music was during the Harlem Renaissance. In one of Hughes poem, “Weary
Blues” – a man is talking about how negative his life is. He is in Harlem on Lenox Avenue
pouring his emotions out through his music.” “Lament over the Love” and “Weary Blues” are
just two of many poems where Hughes uses blues music into his poetry. Through my research I
found that blues music and poetry have the same type of concept – which is talking about your
life and letting your emotions out. In this essay I will show how blues music emerged, the
relevance of blues music during the Harlem Renaissance and how Hughes incorporated blues
music in his poetry.
In “Langston Hughes and the Blues”, Steven C. Tracy discusses how the Harlem
Renaissance and blues music were both rebirths and reformations; he says that it’s not a
coincidence that they emerged at the same time. I think that this is important because blues
music could have emerged from African Americans trying to find their identity during the
Harlem Renaissance. Tracy said that blues music wasn’t taken seriously until 14 February 1920
when Mamie Smith recorded Perry Bradford’s “That thing called Love” and “You can’t Keep a
Good Man Down” which caught a lot of attention from the community. Mamie went on to
release two other tunes because of all the positive feedback – and the record sold 75,000 copies
in its first month of issue. Tracy considers this the “rebirth” of blues because it brought other
black singers into the spotlight. Later in the article he also explains how slaves used their music
to “express themselves metaphorically to disguise their attitudes about their lives” (p.15).
Tracy also brings up one of Dubois’s essays “The Negro” (1913) and talks about
Dubois’s point of view on the slaves songs. Dubois says that the “songs are the articulate
message of the slave world. They tell us in these eager days that life was joyous to the black
slave, carless and happy”. The songs that the slaves wrote were all about their life and what they
were going through at that time – they used the songs to express their feelings and frustration.
This is what blues music is – it’s all about emotion and expression – and it’s emotional because
it’s real. What African Americans talk about in their songs is what they’ve gone through. Tracy
discusses the emergence of the Harlem Renaissance and he says that during the Harlem
Renaissance, African-Americans were trying to establish their identity. He said that various
factors took place in creating the Harlem Renaissance such as “the mass black migration from
South to North, the over-speculation by real estate investors which lead to decreased rent prices,
and New York’s position as a booming metropolis combined to make Harlem the gathering
place for diverse group of African Americans” (p.17). Since African Americans were trying to
find their identity during the Harlem Renaissance, they turned to music – and it connected them
together. Music became a way that African Americans could vent their thoughts and feelings
through. A good example is in the poem “The Weary Blues”, where Hughes writes about an
African American playing a tune on Lenox Avenue. He says “ain’t nobody got nobody in all this
world, ain’t nobody but myself. I’s gwine to quit ma fownin’ and put ma troubles on the shelf”.
He’s not feeling too good about himself – and decided to sing about it. African Americans sang
about their hardships during the Harlem renaissance which shows the connection that blues
music had with the Harlem Renaissance.
In “Seems like Murder here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition”, Adam Gussow
discusses the act of lynching on African Americans. The early 1890s were very rough years for
African Americans in the South since there was flooding along the Mississippi consistently for
three years , a world-wide depression and an increase of lynching (p.2). Lynching was a form of
disciplinary violence where black southerners were exploited into a source of agricultural labor
and they were terrorized into submitting to a system of racial segregation (p.3). Lynching kept
African Americans quiet and afraid but they “expressed their grievances in various musical
ways” (p.3) During the 1890s, blues music began to emerge as well. Gussow described the
“black male blues singer” subject of his songs which were: “his fears, his hopes, his sexual
hungers and romantic losses, his financial setbacks, his aching body, the town he hungers to
escape from”. African Americans shared their lives through their music. Gussow suggests that
blues music first emerged from the violence of lynching. In Langston Hughes poem “Weary
Blues” – the African American man on Lenox Avenue seems to be in a very depressed state. I
think his depression stems from the racism and violence he’s gone through. The man in the poem
is singing that doesn’t even want to live anymore. I think that Blues music could have been
created out of depression.
In “Blues Poetry of Langston Hughes”, Edward E. Waldron discusses how writers have
incorporated blues music into stories and poetries. One example of a poem he talks about is
“Poet Laureate” of Black America by Langston Hughes. Waldron said “In his blues poetry
Langston Hughes captures the mood, the feel, and the spirit of the blues; his poems have the
rhythm and the impact of the musical form they incorporate” (p.140). As I’ve read through
Hughes texts, I do find that they definitely do have a musical core to them – his blues poems are
“blues as well as poetry” (p.140). Waldron also says that blues reflects the trials and tribulations
of the Negro in America on a secular level (p.140). Later in the article, Waldron brings up the
fact that a blues song is always one step away from death like murder or suicide. For example, in
“Lament over Love” by Langston Hughes – the poem is about a woman who is really depressed
over a man who has hurt her. She says “I’m goin’ down to the river – An’ I ain’t goin’ there to
swim” – meaning she’s thinking of committing suicide. At the end up of the poem she also says
that she is going to go on top of a tower and let herself fall – repeating that she wants to commit
suicide. This is a pattern I see throughout Hughes poems; they always end with someone wanting
to die. African Americans talked about anything they were going through in their blues music –
it’s very personal. When I read some of Hughes Poems - I think it’s as if you’re reading
someone’s journal.
Throughout my research I found that blues music was created around the same as
lynching which shows how blues music started to emerge. African Americans started to sing
about their fears and sadness – and this turned into what we know as today – “the blues”. African
Americans also sang the blues during the Harlem Renaissance – a time where African Americans
were trying to find their identity. I think African Americans found their identity through music
because they were able to talk about their lives – and share their stories with the outside world. I
believe that Hughes used blues music in so many of his poems because poetry and blues music
are about expression and emotion. We can really get a sense of how African Americans felt
when reading Hughes poems. I could continue my research by finding more information on the
types of music that were created during the Harlem Renaissance.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
Tracy, C. Steven. “Langston Hughes and the Blues” Journal of Literary Research Nov. 2013
Gussow, Adam. “Seems like Murder Here: Southern Violence and the Blues Tradition”Journal
of Literary Research Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2002. Print.
Edward E. Waldron “Blues Poetry of Langston Hughes” Negro American Literature Forum Vol.
5, No. 4 (winter, 1971), pp. 140-149. St. Louis University