The Weary Blues Langston Hughes, 1902 - 1967

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,
Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,
     I heard a Negro play.
Down on Lenox Avenue the other night
By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light
     He did a lazy sway . . .
     He did a lazy sway . . .
To the tune o’ those Weary Blues.
With his ebony hands on each ivory key
He made that poor piano moan with melody.
     O Blues!
Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool
He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.
     Sweet Blues!
Coming from a black man’s soul.
     O Blues!
In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone
I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan—
     “Ain’t got nobody in all this world,
       Ain’t got nobody but ma self.
       I’s gwine to quit ma frownin’
       And put ma troubles on the shelf.”

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.
He played a few chords then he sang some more—
     “I got the Weary Blues
       And I can’t be satisfied.
       Got the Weary Blues
       And can’t be satisfied—
       I ain’t happy no mo’
       And I wish that I had died.”
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.



Note : 
Langston Hughes was an African American poet and author who joined other black artists to break literary barriers during the civil rights movement. The poem entitled "Theme for English B" was written thirty years or so after the birth of the Harlem Renaissance, but still embodies why the Renaissance had originated in the first place. I believe this poem reflected on Hughes' life in general, but more importantly on the fight against the ignorance that created discrimination. 

Theme :

“The Weary Blues” is a lyric poem with two voices. The theme of the poem is the suffering and frustration of Negroes in America .


Summery :
The Weary Blues describes the performance of a blues musician playing in a club on Lenox Avenue in Harlem. The piece mimics the tone and form of Blues music and uses free verse and closely resembles spoken English. The poem was written by Langston Hughes in 1925 during the Harlem Renaissance, a period of time when African-American artists, musicians, and writers enjoyed appreciation and popular acceptance.
To begin, I will analyze the poem line by line, which you can read in full here. Then, I will comment on the piece’s structure. Finally, I will make note of the work’s historical context.

The singer's foot thumps on the floor as he plays more chords and sings that he has the Weary Blues and cannot be satisfied; he is no longer happy and wishes he were dead. All night long he sings that song, until the stars and the moon are extinguished. He finally stops and goes to bed while the Weary Blues reverberate in his head. He sleeps deeply, as a rock or "a man that's dead."


Analysis:


“The Weary Blues” is one of Langston Hughes's “blues” poems. It appears in the collection of poetry by the same name. 

The other night the speaker of the poem heard the a negro sing blues song on Len-ox Avenue .He was singing the song drowsily ,and was rocking back froth while singing .

His ebony black hands were playing the ivory white keys of a piano that seemed to moan with melody .He was singing like a musical fool on a rickety stool under an old gas light .The song was about the negro's having nobody or nothing in the world so he was extremely unhappy and wished he were dead .He sang late into the night and then slept like a rock or dead man .

Hughes wrote "The Weary Blues" in free verse with an irregular rhyme scheme.

Hughes embraced blues music because it expressed the worries of the common man in a simple and direct manner. Blues songs feature heavy repetition, and singers often seem to be laughing and crying at the same time. The critic Edward Waldron writes about Hughes's blues poetry: "We confront many of the themes that he develops more fully in other works. Loneliness, despair, frustration, and a nameless sense of longing are all represented in the blues poetry."

"The Weary Blues" begins with the speaker coming across a "Negro" musician playing music one night on Lenox Avenue by an old gaslight. Arnold Rampersand writes:
The poem is important  since it depicts the suffering and frustration of negro in america





Analysis 

“The Weary Blues” is about a piano player Hughes knew in Harlem. According to critic Edward J. Mullen, Hughes called “The Weary Blues” his “lucky poem” because it placed first in a literary contest sponsored by the National Urban League in 1925. Unlike “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” however, “The Weary Blues” received greatly mixed reviews from both black and white critics. It was called everything from a masterpiece to doggerel.

The work blends jazz, blues, and poetry into powerful lyric poetry. The narrator’s voice begins the poem:

Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,I heard a Negro play.

In these lines, the musical quality of the poem is already evident. Several of the poem’s repeated lines, such as “He did a lazy sway” and “I got the Weary Blues,” then capture the motion and rhythm of the music. Other refrains, such as “O Blues!” and “Sweet Blues,” create the crooning of the blues. Hughes also uses onomatopoeia in the thumps of the man’s foot on the floor.

Hughes concludes the image by extinguishing the performance, the stars, and the moon but showing that the blues remain an integral part of the man:

The stars went out and so did the moon.The singer stopped playing and went to bedWhile the Weary Blues echoed through his head.He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.

This final image, so different from that in “The Negro Speaks of Rivers,” probably accounts for the mixed reviews of the poem.

Critics who like “The Weary Blues” compare Hughes’s poem to the poetry of Carl Sandburg. DuBose Heyward, for example, says their poetry shares a “freer, subtler syncopation” than that of Vachel Lindsay. Other critics see elements of ballads and spirituals in “The Weary Blues.” Oddly enough, several early critics praise “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” for the same qualities they condemn in “The Weary Blues.” In response, later critics have suggested that these critical comments were biased by the themes of the poems. While “The Negro Speaks of Rivers” is upbeat and affirming of black heritage, “The Weary Blues” affirms a specific heritage, one distinctly not middle class, not classical.

He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead.