Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Factory Blues

Yesterday, I was hard at work sorting building plans for an architectural company. I couldn't move the plans from the room they were located in because they were so old and liable to crumble away. The room was a factory type room with asbestos warning signs and a noticeable smell of natural gas, machinery, and just general death. The whole place looked depressing as hell and like it would probably give me mesothelioma if I stuck around for too long.

That got me to thinking about blues. A factory seems to me much much more depressing than any farmer's field could be - so why aren't there more songs about factory blues? The location of factories wasn't where the country blues was happening at the time, but there was blues to be found in the east as well. Blind Blake sang about his steel mill blues in 1927 but that's all I can think of off the top of my head. Seems like an untapped wellspring of songwriting to me.

4 comments:

  1. I think you're right man. And you make it sounds depressing.

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  2. Don't make it a habit to visit these places. Mesothelioma is really bad

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  3. A figure of truth, of faith, of loyalty: Following!

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  4. as long as i'm not losing a hand its ok i guess

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