The Mule in Blues Imagery

     Poetry typically contains a far greater concentration of rhetorical figures than prose. Figures of speech, thought, and sound regularly heighten the reader’s pleasure as well as refining the theme and tone. Each metaphor is a tiny riddle, the sudden solution of which provides a pleasure similar to that of many jokes. A sense of an exhilarated dance of ideas may be created by systematic image systems. But such figures are not mere ornamental decoration. They also allow the expression of new ideas and subtle shades of familiar ones. Rather than obscuring content, they render it precise.
     Since the Romantic era, critics have celebrated “innovation” to the disadvantage of tradition. The use of such conventional images has been criticized as unimaginative, but a close study indicates that even when frequently used, a good poet will find the potential in such convention not only for considerable latitude, but even for eloquence.
      One rhetorical device is allusion. Within every body of poetry, be it ancient Greek epic, troubadour lyric, or Elizabethan sonnets, certain poetic figures recur, building an ever-greater matrix of meaning. In the country blues tradition, one of the most beautiful and powerful bodies of American lyric in the first half of the twentieth century, a good many metaphors reflect the rural setting in which the songs were composed. With loving affection women are sometimes described as cows, while men may be compared to roosters. Another beast that occurs in a substantial number of early blues songs is the mule, the common work animal of the South. In a broad, though not inclusive, sample mules, which the listener might expect to be something of a cliché with a set, decodable meaning, in fact occupy a broad semantic field with a variety of implications. [1] Sometimes, indeed, they are the basis for set formulae which correspond more closely to popular ideas of a literary convention, while other uses are anomalous or unique.
     In general the image of a mule is employed by the musician-poets of the genre with rich flexibility. One finds characteristics associated with the animal that are familiar to even contemporary urbanites such as stubbornness, industriousness, and a powerful kick, but even these are far from identical in context.
     One dramatic evidence for the image’s versatility is its near equal use to describe men and women. [2] In the songs in which the mule is identified with a man, the singer may refer to the mule's stubbornness as when Barefoot Bill in “From Now On” sings “I’m going to “act just like a doggone mule.” A number of songs note the mule’s untiring capacity for labor. For instance, Blind Blake in his “Good-Bye Mama Moan” claims to his credit that ““I been your hard-working mule,” and Washboard Sam promises “I’ll work like a doggone mule” in “Save It for Me.”
     In the regular structure of the poetic transformation of convention, [3] any association can be inverted, denied, or altered in a variety of other ways. For instance, whereas the two references just cited are positive, asserting the speaker’s qualifications as a partner, others are negative. Big Bill Broonzy in “Big Bill Blues” refuses to take orders from his beloved, saying, “cinch I ain’t going to be your mule,” and Sonny Boy Williamson indignantly objects, “You want Sonny Boy to be your mule.” (“Low Down Ways“). [4]
     But the changes the poet can ring on the theme of the mule do not cease there. With a phrase very little different from those already cited, the physical power of the animal can also exemplify the singer’s sexual energy and endurance as in Will Weldon’s enthusiastic “Hitch Me to your Buggy and Drive Me Like a Mule.”
     The mules may equally suggest the woman’s sexual energy as in Huddie Ledbetter’s “Honey, I’m All Out and Down” with its unmistakably erotic lines: “Wouldn't mind a jug : honey on the mule's behind/Yes a brownskin woman : make a preacher lay his Bible down.” In Texas Alexander’s “Levee Camp Moan Blues” the mule is simply decodable as a lover: “Lord I couldn't find a mule” and the virtues of a country girl are said to make her a “jewel brown mule” (Walter Vincon and the Mississippi Sheiks, “She Ain’t No Good”). Her mule-like power is praised by Ed Bell whose lover is “strong as a mule” in “She’s a Fool Gal.”
     The mule’s connotations may, however, be negative for women as well as men. For instance, Blind Lemon Jefferson says his beloved was acting “just like a balky mule.” (“Balky Mule Blues“ ) and Willie Baker in “Mama, Don’t Rush Me Blues” says “Mama you been just like : says a farmer's mule/longer I live with you : harder you is to rule.” [5]
     A good share of the references to women as mules employ the set formula familiar to all blues lovers in a long list of variations all including the phrase “left me a mule to ride.” [6] In each of these songs, the singer notes the departure of his lover, often on a train, leaving him only a mule to ride. Ride, of course, is a common euphemism for sexual intercourse, so the formula simply states the love-longing of the singer, though sometimes including such subtle variations as David King’s lament in his “Sweet Potato Blues” that “the mule laid down and died.”
     The other most common set formula is one in which the mule is again male: the complaint that the lover has been two-timed, that there is “another mule kicking in my stall.” Here the mule is again masculine with the stall representing the feminine. Very often the formula is simple as in Tampa Red’s “It’s Tight Like That”: “Found another mule : kicking in my stall.” [7] Variations include Kokomo Arnold’s reversal in “Your Ways and Actions”: “my mule is kicking in your stall” and the inclusion of the phrase in the old song “Seven Drunken Nights” [8] by Coley Jones in his “Drunkard’s Special” which includes the lines “I went home drunk as I could be/There's another mule in the stable : where my mule ought to be.”
     There remain a number of usages of mule imagery that fit none of the patterns I have described. Several singers refer to actual mules with no apparent other meaning. For instance, Robert Wilkins’ “New Stock Yard Blues” speaks of actual stockyards and livestock purchasing and Sleepy John Estes’ “Tell Me About It” complains about a rural boss insisting that sharecroppers share a mule. [9] The effects of hard liquor are associated with the kick of a mule by Kid Prince Moore in “Bug Juice Blues” and by Robert Hicks (Barbecue Bob) in “Blind Pig Blues.” Blind Lemon Jefferson in “Long Lonesome Blues” declares “Well the blues come to Texas : loping like a mule,” though he might as well have said a rabbit or a deer. The endless variety of other potential uses for mule imagery is suggested by the miscellany of lines I have not yet mentioned. [10]
     The use of poetic conventions, such as the mule image in American blues, is, like all figures of speech, not a code in which one word is simply substituted for another. It is a complex system of association and connotation that generates an ever-widening semantic field. Both through the calculated imprecision of the correspondence between tenor and vehicle and the additional enrichment of meaning through allusion, image clusters and other figures distinguish poetic from non-aesthetic uses of language. They enable the writer to express precise shades of thought as well as inviting delight from the receptive consumer.





1. My database is the excellent “Michael Taft’s Pre=War Blues Lyrics Concordance” available at http://dylan61.se/michael%20taft,%20blues%20anthology.txt.WebConcordance/framconc.htm. I have appended a complete list of songs from his catalogue that mention mules. In my essay songs and artists are cited by name, making them simple to locate on the list, whereas in endnotes I use sometimes the titles and sometimes only the numbers assigned to each. In the few cases in which several versions of a song were released in the same year, the texts differ enough that the reader may have to check each to find the relevant material.

2. In fourteen songs the mule is identified with a man and in seventeen with a woman. References to men occur is 7, 9, 10, 11, 13, 14, 15, 21, 24, 26, 30, 43, 44, and 47. Those to women are in 2, 4, 6, 8, 13, 20, 27, 28, 34, 35, 39, 40, 42, 48

3. For the general concept see my “Transformation of Convention” on this site. For specific applications in practical criticism, see, among other essays available here “Transformation of Convention in Early Minnesang,” “The Early English Carol,” or “William IX.”

4. See also the similar complaint in Richard Rabbit Brown’s “James Alley Blues”: “she want to drive me like a mule.”

5. Similarly Roosevelt Sykes in “No Good Woman Blues” says, “I won't try no mule : that don't know gee from haw/I don't want no woman : she just soon as say yes as to say no”

6. The formula appears in 13, 20, 34, 39, and 48.

7. The formula appears also in 4, 11, 16, 18, 32, 33, 41, and 49.

8. “Seven Drunken Nights” is the usual Irish title. This popular, slightly ribald song is a variation of the Scottish one collected by Child “Our Goodman.” It is related as well to the English broadside "The Merry Cuckold and the Kind Wife."

9. In a similar vein Sleepy John Estes in “Working Man Blues” inveighs against automation, saying “white folks you ought to work/ More mules and men.”

10. For Blind Willie McTell a mule’s tail suggests public hair. (“Kind Mama”) In Blind Bogus Ben Covington’s “Boodle-Um-Bum Bum” “scared my mule away” refers to the singer’s dope selling being disturbed. For Peter Chatman (Memphis Slim) “son just don't lead a doggone mule” means to look out for number one. (“Me, Myself, and I”) In Big Bill Broonzy’s “Grandma’s Farm” “got a note my black mule died” means a change of lovers. Finally Charlie Bozo Nickerson’s line in “Move that Thing,” while obscure, is doubtless obscene: “The mules backed up : in my face.”


This site includes a good many other essays treating blues songs as poetry. To see the others open the Index under the current month in the archive and consult section 5D “songs.”



1. Texas Alexander “Awful Moaning Blues. Pt. 2” 1929
2. Texas Alexander “Levee Camp Moan Blues 1927 (two versions)
3. Kokomo Arnold “Front Door Blues” 1925
4. Kokomo Arnold “Front Door Blues” 1935
5. Kokomo Arnold “Your Ways and Actions” 1938
6. Willie Baker “Mama, Don’t Rush Me Blues” 1929
7. Barefoot Bill (Ed Bell) “From Now On” 1929
8. Ed Bell “She’s a Fool Gal” 1930
9. Blind Blake “Bootleg Rum Dum Blues” 1928
10. Blind Blake “Goodbye Mama Moan” 1928
11. Big Bill (Broonzy) “Big Bill Blues” 1932 (two versions)
12. Big Bill (Broonzy) “Grandma’s Farm” (two versions) 1920
13. Richard Rabbit Brown “James Alley Blues” 1927
14. Washboard Sam (Robert Clifford Brown) “Lowland Blues” 1937
15. Washboard Sam (Robert Clifford Brown) “Save It for Me” 1938
16. Charlie Campbell “Goin’ Away Blues” 1937
17. Peter Chatman (Memphis Slim) “Me, Myself, and I” 1941
18. Kid Cole “Niagara Fall Blues” 1928
19. Blind Bogus Ben Covington “Boodle-Um-Bum Bum” 1928
20. Walter Davis “Travelin’ this Lonesome Road” 1935
21. Memphis Minnie (Lizzie Douglas) “He’s in the Ring” 1935
22. Sleepy John Estes “Tell Me About It” 1940
23. Sleepy John Estes “Working Man Blues” 1941
24. Hound Head Henry “Low Down Hound Blues” 1928
25. Robert Hicks (Barbecue Bob) “Blind Pig Blues” 1928
26. Son House “My Black Mama, Part 1” 1930
27. Blind Lemon Jefferson “Balky Mule Blues“ 1929
28. Blind Lemon Jefferson “Lemon’s Worried Blues” 1928
29. Blind Lemon Jefferson “Long Lonesome Blues” 1926
30. Blind Lemon Jefferson “Rabbit Foot Blues” 1926
31. Coley Jones “Drunkard’s Special” 1929 (five recordings)
32. Maggie Jones “You May Go But You’ll Come Back Some Day” 1924
33. Stovepipe No. 1 (Sam Jones) “Bed Slats” 1927
34. David King “Sweet Potato Blues” 1930 (two versions)
35. Huddie Ledbetter “Honey, I’m All Out and Down” 1925
36. Blind Willie McTell “Kind Mama” 1929
37. Kid Prince Moore “Bug Juice Blues” 1936
38. Charlie Bozo Nickerson “Move that Thing” 1920
39. Bessie Smith “J.C. Holmes Blues” 1925
40. Roosevelt Sykes “No Good Woman Blues” 1930 (two versions)
41. Henry Thomas “Texas Easy Street Blues” 1928
42. Walter Vincon (Mississippi Sheiks) “She Ain’t No Good” 1930
43. Will Weldon (Casey Bill) “Hitch Me to your Buggy and Drive Me Like a Mule” 1927
44. Peetie Wheatstraw “When a Man Gets Down” 1936
45. Tampa Red (Hudson Whitaker) “It’s Tight Like That” 1928
46. Robert Wilkins “New Stock Yard Blues” 1935
47. Sonny Boy Williamson “Low Down Ways“ 1938
48. Sonny Boy Williamson “Shotgun Blues” 1941 (two versions)
49. Leola B. Wilson “Back-Biting Bee Blues” 1926

The Paraklausithyron Blues

     Paraklausithyron, a “lament by the door,” is a topos in classical Greek and Latin poetry. Though a great deal of variation is apparent even in ancient examples, the typical early paraklausithyron in Asclepiades, Callimachus, Tibullus, and Horace was the complaint of a would-be lover, shut out from his beloved, often garlanded and drunk from a komos earlier in the evening. [1] Shorn of these specific cultural details, the motif of the exclusus amator is universal. Most love poetry speaks of love-longing, not of fulfilled desire. The literal dramatic situation of a man lingering outside the door of his love-object occurs in fact, and the frustrated wish to enter vividly expresses is a wish for emotional or intimate access. The convention appears in medieval Occitan poetry and modern American popular song. A particularly rich vein of paraklausithroi emerges from the distinctly American love poetry of the blues.
     An analysis of the use of the paraklausithyron in blues lyrics has two significant implications. First, the wide distribution of the trope demonstrates the fact that many literary conventions from genre to specific devices such as rhetorical figures or images have arisen world-wide, even when no avenue of influence is plausible. People have hit upon the same verbal technologies to express the same human feelings.
     Secondly, like all literary conventions, the paraklausithyron is far from static. It is in fact highly dynamic, transforming instantly into a panoply of possibilities. Indeed, in the earliest recorded use of the word [2], it is used to challenge Greek gender assumptions by asking why a female lover might not demonstrate “the height of a passionate affection” with such a song no less than a man. Plutarch’s question might be followed by another asking why the voice might not come from within, and a third suggesting that the voice might be either accepting or rejecting the other’s love. With this simple schema, three bipolar oppositions generate eight possibilities [3] based on the male/female, inside/outside, acceptance/rejection dualities.
     As a matter of fact, virtually all of the theoretical possibilities in this array are found in early blues. [4] The locus classicus must be Perry Bradford’s 1928 “Keep A Knockin’ an You Can’t Get In” though enough earlier analogues exist to label the song traditional [5]. In this most popular group of versions the speaker is within, refusing access to the knocker. In several early versions including the popular recording by Louis Jordan (1939), the speaker refuses the caller admission due to being occupied with another lover. In Little Richard’s very popular 1957 cover, he therefore suggests “come back tomorrow night and try again.”
     This is hardly the only form the paraklausithyron assumes in the blues. The male speaker inside may, as in the instances cited above, reject the woman as he does also in Marshall Owens “Try Me One More Time” (1932), Kokomo Arnold’s “Busy Bootin’” (1935) or “Your Ways and Actions” (1938) or Big Bill Broonzy’s “Skoodle Do Do” (1930). On the other hand, he may receive the knocker with open arms as in Smoky Harrison’s “Iggly Oggly” (1929) or Sammy Hill’s “Needin’ My Woman Blues” (1929).
     The persona inside is female and may reject the man outside as in Anna Bell’s “Every Woman Blues” (1928). A woman in the same position may also welcome him as in Ethel Waters’ “Memphis Man” (1923) or Huddie Ledbetter’s “My Friend Blind Lemon” (1935). A woman outside is rejected in Lil Green’s “I’m Wasting My Time on You” (1942).
     Many other variations may arise from the same convention. In Lonnie Clark’s “Broke Down Engine” (1929) the speaker complains in spite of being with his lover as his “yellow woman” knocks, causing him to exhort his companion to greater efforts on his behalf. In Blind Willy McTell’s 1931 version of the same song the speaker is knocking and this is merely one of a series of details indicating his depression. In “Hurry and Bring It Back Home” by Robert Hicks (Barbecue Bob) 1928 the knock at the door brings him the news of his lover’s departure. The list of variations is limited only by how tightly one defines the convention.
     The blues use the same resources as other poetry and often resorts to similar conventions. The laments of a frustrated lover, excluded by his beloved have resounded around the globe and through the centuries. Just as language depends on a tension between what one has heard said by others and the unique content of every specific statement, poetry likewise is always a product of earlier poetry, though every utterance is new. The paraklausithyron was effectively employed by many artists who would have found nothing but mumbo-jumbo in the term just as Classicists would be unfamiliar with portions of the rural Southern vocabulary. Yet the early blues singers deployed the resources of language with a subtlety and expressive power equaling that of any Roman elegist, Provençal troubadour, or Elizabethan sonneteer.



1. See Asclepiades GP 11 HE = AP 564, Callimachus 64, Ovid Amores 1.6, Catallus 67, Horace Odes 3.10 and 3.26, Tibullus 1.2, Propertius 1.16, Ovid Amores 1.6.

2. Plutarch, Amatorius 8.

3. This is, of course, two to the third power.

4. For the most part I used again the excellent concordance of pre-war blues lyrics posted by Michael Taft at http://www.dylan61.se/michael%20taft,%20blues%20anthology.txt.WebConcordance/framconc.htm.

5. This song, recorded by James “Boodle It” Wiggins enjoyed considerable popularity though other versions, including one by Tampa Red’s Hokum Jug Band were recorded at about the same time. Earlier versions existed such as Miller and Lile’s “You Can’t Come in” (1921), Sylvester Weaver’s “I’m Busy and You Can’t Come In” (1924) and Irene Gibbons “You Can’t Come In” (1924). Stuart Berg Flexner cites a 1912 “Bawdyhouse Blues“ with the words “I hear you knockin', but you can't come in/ I got an all-night trick again.” (Listening To America, New York: Simon and Shuster: 1982, p. 454). Including the later variant titled “I Hear You Knockin’” attributed to Bartholomew and King, the song was recorded by many artists including Mississippi John Hurt, Louis Jordan, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, and The Everly Brothers.


This site includes a good many other essays treating blues songs as poetry. To see the others open the Index under the current month in the archive and consult section 5D “songs.”

Robert Johnson and the Devil

     Robert Johnson’s diabolism is a significant part of his image. Some admirers are fascinated with the story that attributes his genius to a Faustian deal with the devil; others fancy traces of the Yoruba trickster Legba. Such enthusiasts should be given pause by the fact that Johnson’s records were not major hits, and, in his own lifetime, he was an all-but-unknown artist nationally. An aetiological myth explaining his preternatural skills would make no sense at a time when he appeared indistinguishable from a mass of other singers. Though some Delta informants including Son House volunteered to support the story, it never appeared until the Folk Renaissance of the early 60s and Johnson’s subsequent recognition as the paramount bluesman by hip young whites who considered themselves outsiders or outlaws. In this way they are similar to bikers and heavy metal fans who likewise enjoy flirting with satanism primarily in order to annoy others and express disaffection. I do realize that Southern black (and white) culture considers secular and church music to be sharply opposed, and the blues artist is unlikely to be an unconflicted Christian church-goer.
     Still, the definitive answer about the relevance of the story to Johnson’s oeuvre must emerge from the texts. A study of his lyrics indicates no diabolism, only a very conventional, even cautious, use of the Christian devil to serve his lyric ends.
     The central text cited as evidence for Johnson’s deal with the devil is “Crossroad Blues,” yet the song itself simply describes his failing to hitch a ride. Some commentators have linked his rejection by the passing drivers (“didn’t nobody seem to know me”) and anxiety about dark descending with the threat of racist violence, but in the song it simply sets the emotional tone for the singer’s frustration in love. “I haven’t got no lovin’ sweet woman that/ love and feel my care.” His loneliness is only rendered more concrete and poignant by his message to a male friend saying that he is “sinking down.” Far from seeking to deal with satanic powers, the singer “fell down on [his] knees” to pray in ordinary Christian supplication and need.
     Though it has received less attention in this connection, “Me and the Devil Blues” is more suggestive. In this song the devil appears at the singer’s door and they go walking together when these startling lines appear:


I'm going to beat my woman
‘Til I get satisfied


     His excuse for this vicious threat is that she has been “dogging” him, not “doin’ me right.” Both he and his lover seem possessed by that old evil spirit/ So deep down in the ground.” Their mésalliance seems destined to continue: the singer imagines his lover taking care of his funeral arrangement. Only then can he indulge in a dream of liberation when his “old evil” spirit can “get on a Greyhound bus and ride.”
     In this song, the most explicit about the singer’s companionship with the devil, the association seems to relate to the tangle of their relationship rather than to any bargain for blues mastery.
     Hellhounds are known from a great many cultures, both in myth and in folklore. Most commonly the devil-dog is an omen of death, though similar terms are used in African-American religious rhetoric as emblems of temptation. In Johnson’s “Hell Hound On My Trail” they simply embody his suffering. The song opens with a defensive lament:


I got to keep movin’, I've got to keep movin’
Blues fallin’ down like hail, blues fallin' down like hail.


     This suffering plaint is then repeated in different language.


And the days keeps on worryin' me,
there's a hellhound on my trail,


     Here the hellhound is clearly not moral temptation, but simply the pains and difficulties of life. The singer imagine respite from his woes.


If today was Christmas eve
If today was Christmas eve,
and tomorrow was Christmas day

If today was Christmas eve,
and tomorrow was Christmas day
(spoken: Aow, wouldn't we have a time, baby?)
All I would need my little sweet rider just,
to pass the time away, huh huh, to pass the time away


     This idyll is broken however by the beloved’s betrayal. She is practicing hoodoo rituals, “hot foot powder,” generally used to rid oneself of an unwanted individual, against the singer. This persecution leaves him with a “ramblin’ mind.”
     The song concludes with a lovely lyric stanza reminiscent of troubadour conventions. The “wind risin’” and the “leaves tremblin’ on the tree” signify the vitality of nature which fits uneasily against the singer’s anxious uncertainty in a way similar to the medieval nature introductions. (And, indeed, his “Preaching Blues” is probably the purest and most intense lyrical expression of the blues, rather like Bernart de Ventadorn’s “Non es meravelha s’eu chan”).
     It is a harmful distraction even playfully to displace the drama of Johnson’s powerful and lovely poetry from troubled eroticism and life’s suffering to some sort of diabolism. The move reveals more about the fantasies of the countercultural explorers to whom we owe the rediscovery and celebration of his work than about African, African-American or uniquely Johnsonian myth. When Son House expressed his admiration for Johnson’s rapid technical improvement in a way that gave the tale publicity years after Johnson’s death, he delighted the singer’s new fans even as he misled them. Let us listen to the music.


This site includes a good many other essays treating blues songs as poetry. To see the others open the Index under the current month in the archive and consult section 5D “songs.”