dios, in a bourgeois podrida town

El Alan Lomax, que se dedicaba a buscar y recojer la Cultura en forma de música de la Gente,
se encontró con el señor Leadbelly, que era un tipo que hacía lo mismo, recolectar canciones, interpretarlas, hacerlas.
Conocía y hacía canciones de curro, de carceles, de niñxs.
El señor Lomax se las apañó para sacarlo del talego donde estaba y llevarse al tipo a whasington pa grabar lo que sabía, en su enciclopedico trabajo pa la biblioteca del congreso.
Se hicieron amigos.
Y se fueron a celebrar todo eso, pero como eran 4 personas clasificadas en 2 categorías raciales y de genero presuntamente diferentes, no les dejaron entrar en muchos sitios.

De lo que salió esta bonita canción,

"BOURGEOIS BLUES"

( words and music by Huddie Ledbetter / edited with new additional material by Alan Lomax )

Tell all the colored folks to listen to me
Don't try to buy no home in Washington, D.C.

Chorus:
(Lord) It's a bourgeois town, it's a bourgeois town,
Got the bourgeois blues, gonna spread the news all around

Me an' my wife run all over town
Everywhere we go, the people turn us down.

Me and Marthy we was standing upstair,
I heard a white man say, "I don't want no niggers up there"

2nd Chorus:
He was a bourgeois man living in a bourgeois town,
Got the bourgeois blues, gonna spread the blues all around.

The white folks in Washington, they know how
Chuck a colored man a nickel just to see him bow

The D.A.R. won't let Marion Anderson in,
But Mrs. Roosevelt was her best friend.

In the home of the brave, land of the free
I don't want to be mistreated by no bourgeoisie

Look-a-here, people, listen to me
Don't try to find no home in Washington, D.C.

Las letras están cojidas de www.mudcat.org/thread.cfm?threadid=470

en donde han colgado tambien un texto donde el Woody Guthrie explica la cosa,
cojido del libro

"Hard-Hitting Songs for Hard-Hit People" :

"... That just means "bushwa." Bushwa means moneyed folks with a lot of high falooting notions.
Think they're just a shade better than you and me,
or that they got a perfect right to twist us loose from our money any old way they can ...,
Bushwa folks are just a little tangled up in the head, that's all, you know, just sorta uppity or sissy or think they're smart.

Leadbelly is a Negro Blues singer and "King of the Twelve String Guitar,"
and you can't fool him.

Here's a song he wrote after some business men and landlords in Washington, D.C. had insulted him, his wife, and a carload of friends, some white, some Negro.
They refused to let him eat at the same cafe or stay in the same house.
They tried several and was turned down.

Leadbelly said :

- What kind of town is this, anyhow?

and his friends said :

- This is a bushwa town.

So in a few minutes, Leadbelly exploded with this song
and fired it into the faces
of the stuck-up Bushwas
at several of their very most elegant parties.

I've lived with Leadbelly and his wife Martha many weeks and they're 2 of as good a friends as I ever had.
Lots of books have already been written about his prison life and his story and full page pictures has appeared in magazines.
Leadbelly, to my notion, and his wife are Real Folks.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Bourgeois_Blues


no he encontrado la versión de Taj Mahal, que le ponía una mala leche y un ritmo creciente acelerao de cagarse, lastima.
pero si se pasean por el yotuve hay unas cuantas variantes.
la canción se puede pillar en unos recopilatorios de música sagrada que me encontrao en :

elrefractario.blogspot.com/2008/03/viva-la-anarqua.html


P.S., julio 2011 :

me he encontrao video versión larga y el video de lo del taj mahal :