“Preachin’ the Blues” (Son House)

I discuss here House’s 1930 recording, the text of which is appended. I have added also for comparison his 1965 version.


     Literature, indeed, art in general, is particularly effective in dealing with thematic material which is conflicted, ambivalent, paradoxical, and mysterious. This characteristic of poetic truth arises not from a valuation of obscurity for its own sake, but rather from the complexity of people’s own attitudes, particularly toward the subjects that matter most: love, death, and the divine. Self-contradictory codes flourish in poetry because binary oppositions are often reductive or false. An accurate answer is often "neither and both."
     Son House exemplifies in his life as well as his work the tension between the sacred and the secular in early Delta blues singers and in African-American culture more generally. Though in his youth he was a regular church-goer and generally an enthusiastic Christian, his ambivalence toward religion and its associated codes of morality emerged in periodic heavy drinking which resulted in his leaving the church for a time, though he later returned to become a deacon and then a preacher for several years. At the age of twenty-five, he was captivated upon hearing a friend play slide guitar, and, in what has been called a reverse conversion, he returned to the blues. [1] The lifestyle that resulted from his commitment to secular music led to his involvement in periodic fights and twice to his arrest for murder. [2]
     One of his most well-known tunes, “Preachin’ the Blues,” recorded for Paramount in two parts in 1930, expresses the bipolar opposition of sacred and secular in its paradoxical title as well as in House’s intense, strained vocal quality and the driving, if simple, accompaniment. The pressured vocalizations of the performance push against the limits of the artist’s virtuosity, piercing the border of intelligibility to heighten the tone and leaping thereby into the sublime beginning with the very first syllable, an extended “ohhh” that seems to rise from the depths.
     The pattern of these apparently “spontaneous overflows of powerful emotion” is highly symmetrical. The afflatus above the register of words is maintained through the second verse’s “mmm” sound, the heart-felt “yeah” of verses six and seven which links the last verse on side one and the first of side two, the first of which is supported by an “oh” and the second by a “whoa.” The final verse brings a unifying return to the “oh” from the abyss which opened the song.
     Similarly, House’s exclamations, replicating those that would arise from a Pentecostal congregation, “Lord God almighty” and “praise God almighty,” indicate a level of emotional excitement, though their piety is radically ambivalent, caught on the ridgepole of doubt that supports the entire song.
     The song opens with what might sound like a declaration of faith in church, the commitment of a sinner coming forward to be saved: “Oh, I'm gon' get me religion I'm gon' join the baptist church.” Yet ambiguity emerges immediately as the rhyme line turns to satire emphasized by the vocal waver about the word “have to” in the line “so I won’t have to work.” House thus ridicules the most respected member of the community at the same time as he implicitly rejects the work ethic embraced by “respectable” blacks. His listeners were familiar with jokes and stories based on men of the cloth whose minds were less on things of the spirit than on chicken dinners from the parishioners, if not the church ladies’ beds. [3]
     He then tightly conflates the sacred and the secular by announcing “Oh, I’m gonna preach these blues now“ and asking “I want everybody to shout,” as though they were in a church rather than a juke joint, the likely venue for the song’s performance. Just after saying he would accept religion, he begins to preach, but not from a gospel perspective, rather “I'm gonna preach these blues now,” suggesting the music might prove for him a sort of religion. He continues “I want everybody to shout” as though leading a fundamentalist worship service where the congregation is anything but passive.
     While this may seem to continue the mocking of men of the cloth by conducting a sort of black Protestant equivalent of a Black Mass, celebrating the opposite of Christian values, the last line of the second verse disappoints that expectation with an apparently sincere search for spiritual release, just as the rhyme-line of the first stanza upset the rhetoric of the very first verse. The poignant longing of the line is unmistakable, “I'm gonna do like a prisoner, I'm gon' roll my time on out.”
     The word prisoner here is profoundly ambiguous. On the one hand, an irreligious person might regard the rules of the church as a “prison.” For the observant when House compares himself to a prisoner, the term may recall St. Paul’s references to himself as “a prisoner of Jesus Christ.” [4] Paul was speaking of his being made a literal prisoner because of his righteousness alone, but also of his submissive commitment to Christian morality and values. Finally, behind these associations is the old sense of the body itself as a prison and life as a long incarceration. [5]
     “I'm gon' roll my time on out” surely means that the speaker will live his life, with all its restrictions and suffering, in such a way as to make it as easy as possible, while maintaining a neutrality about Christianity or loose living will be the greater aid toward that end.
     In the third verse the ambiguities continue as the singer, having resolved to “do his time” on earth as easily as possible, commences to seek the consolation of religion in an altogether conventional way. “In my room I bowed down to pray,” but his intentions are short-lived since “the blues come along and they blowed my spirit away.” The speaker is apparently passive, he is trying to do right, but the blues rear up, actively curtailing his devotions. The personification anticipates the phrase that occurs later: “the blues came walking like a man.” [6] What could he do with his spirit involuntarily dissipated and his soul in the grip of the blues?
     Simply to reinforce his case, the speaker goes on to insist “I'd'a had religion, Lord, this very day/ But the womens and the whiskey, well, they would not let me pray.” Again he blames an outside agency for overwhelming his good faith attempts to lead a Christian life. He proceeds to yearn for heaven and, for good measure, praises “God almighty,” but then reveals that his own paradise would be “a long, long happy home” populated by “all my women,” implying that eternal love-making rather than choral song would occupy his black angels. [7] He is holding tightly to both sides of the bipolar opposition, seeking salvation (which one might also call liberation or enlightenment) while at the same time affirming his incorrigible pursuit of pleasure.
     The singer readily confesses the egocentric basis of his earthly love, noting in the sixth verse, after a passionate “yeah,” an enthusiastic affirmation: “I love my baby just like I love myself.” Christ after all, asked neither more nor less. [8] House, however, is swift to add the aggressively possessive and quite unchristian sentiment: “if she don't have me she won't have nobody else.”
     On the second side of the record, “Preachin’ the Blues, Part 2” House elaborates the synthesis of the sacred and the secular, implying a new sort of blues which provides a vision entire and specific of blues as an experience potentially as profound and soul-satisfying as the church. As before, he begins by sounding as though he is conventionally pious: “I'm gon' fold my arms , I'm gonna kneel down in prayer.” The rhyme-line, though recoils on this meaning: “when I get up I'm gonna leave my preachin blues laying there.” Though the precise implication of this statement is mysterious, House again beings into creation through naming that odd hybrid, the preaching blues.
     A sort of theophany follows with the devotee’s communion with the supernatural. “I met the blues this morning, walking just like a man,” human because, of course, only sentient beings can get the blues. Rather than fleeing, the persona reaches out in fellowship to embrace his own suffering, saying “give me you right hand.”
     The knotty problem that motivates both the devout and those dedicated to the blues, the dilemma of suffering, is then resolved. The singer confidently states “there aint nothing now baby, Lord that's gon' worry my mind,” placing his lover and his god paratactically next to each other, as though he is addressing both at the same time. In a new state of blessedness, he says all is well, “I'm satisfied I got the longest line.”
     The last two stanzas, punctuated by the call to “praise God,” are filled with the resolution to continue in his practice of refusing to select either the sacred or the secular, but rather combining them into a synthesis better suited to his sensibility. Vowing “to stay on the job” and “preach these gospel blues,” he can not only lift up his own soul but can inspire a similar excited joy in his listeners.


Whoa, I'm gonna preach these blues now and choose my seat and sit down
When the spirit comes, I want you to jump straight up and down


     A primary weakness of the church is its hypocrisy. Believers and men of the cloth alike are expected to deny their own essential nature in order to be holy. The singer seeks to integrate spiritual growth with a more realistic assessment of what it is to be human in which both religion and sensuality have a part. Son House in this song testifies to the spiritual power of the blues, a power felt by many practitioners and listeners through the life of the genre. [9] The gravitas and passion he brings to the song lifts it far above satire of the failings of the church and its adherents into a search after a new synthesis of the sacred and the secular which might provide the individual with purpose and peace of mind more attuned to human nature than fundamentalist Christianity. If the tension is never resolved between sacred and secular that, too, reflects the singer’s (and perhaps the listener’s) lived experience.



1. Further biographical details may be found in Daniel Beaumont’s Preachin' the Blues; The Life and Times of Son House (Oxford, Oxford University Press: 2011).

2. He served several years at Parchman Farm the first time, but the second time, twenty-five years later, the charges were dropped.

3. In The ground-breaking Deep Down in the Jungle (p. 199) Roger D. Abrahams notes a precedent in Boccaccio when introducing jokes, which he describes as “legion,” on “the sexual promiscuity of the clergy”.

4. See Philemon I,9, Ephesians 4:1, etc. See also “slaves of God” (Romans 6:22). In the Eastern Orthodox Church, this term is used to refer to any Eastern Orthodox Christian. The Arabic name Abdullah (from عبد الله, ʿAbd Allāh) means "slave of God," as do the Hebrew name Obadiah (עובדיה), the German name Gottschalk, and the Sanskrit name Devadasa.

5. The trope appears around the world. See, for instance, Plato, Cratylus, 400c, Phaedo, 61e-62c, Gorgias, 493a, Phaedrus 250c, and Republic IX 586a. Leo III’s De Miseria Condicionis Humane (XIX) says straightforwardly “the body is the prison of the soul.”

6. These same words also appear in Robert Johnson’s song titled “Preachin’ Blues.”

7. Cf. Robert Nighthawk’s “Sweet Black Angel.” Or Lucille Bogan’s version “Black Angel Blues” Louis Lasky (“Teasin’ Brown Blues”), Charlie McCoy (“Last Time Blues”), and Blind Willie McTell (“Talking to Myself” and “Ticket Agent Blues”) are among those whose songs ask God to “send me an angel down.”

8. See Matthew 22:39, Mark 12:31, and Luke 12:27.

9. There are at least two albums titled Blues are my Religion (by Eric Culberson and Sonny Rhodes). For a scholarly iteration, see Jon Michael Spencer’s Blues and Evil. Cf. Ted Joans’ poem “Jazz is my Religion.”


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.”


Preachin’ the Blues
part 1 1930 version

Oh, I'm gon' get me religion I'm gon' join the baptist church
Oh, I'm gon' get me religion I'm gon' join the baptist church
I'm gon' be a baptist preacher and I sure won't have to work

Oh, I'm gonna preach these blues now, and I want everybody to shout
Mmm-mmm, I want everybody to shout
I'm gonna do like a prisoner, I'm gon' roll my time on out

Oh, in my room I bowed down to pray
Oh, up in my room I bowed down to pray
Then the blues come along and they blowed my spirit away

Oh, I'd'a had religion, Lord, this very day
Oh, I'd'a had religion, Lord, this very day
But the womens and whiskey, well, they would not let me pray

Oh, I wish I had me a heaven of my own,
(praise God almighty)
Yeah, heaven of my own,
Then I'd give all my women a long, long happy home

Yeah, I love my baby just like I love myself
Oh, just like I love myself
But if she don't have me she won't have nobody else.


part 2

Yeah, I'm gon' fold my arms , I'm gonna kneel down in prayer
Whoa, I fold my arms, gonna kneel down in prayer
When I get up I'm gonna leave my preachin blues laying there

Now I met the blues this morning, walking just like a man
Oh, walking just like a man
I said good morning blues, now give me you right hand

Now there aint nothing now baby, Lord that's gon' worry my mind
Oh, Lord that's gon' worry my mind
I'm satisfied I got the longest line

I got to stay on the job,I aint got no time to lose
Yeah, I aint got no time to lose
I swear to God, I got to preach these gospel blues

(Praise God almighty)

Oh, I'm gonna preach these blues and choose my seat and sit down
Whoa, I'm gonna preach these blues now and choose my seat and sit down
When the spirit comes, I want you to jump straight up and down



Preachin’ Blues (1965)

Yes, I'm gonna get me religion, I'm gonna join the Baptist Church.
Yes, I'm gonna get me religion, I'm gonna join the Baptist Church.
You know I wanna be a Baptist preacher, just so I won't have to work.

One deacon jumped up, and he began to grin.
One deacon jumped up, and he began to grin.
You know he said, "One thing, elder. I believe I'll go back to barrelhousin again."

One sister jumped up, and she began to shout.
One sister jumped up, and she began to shout.
"You know I'm glad this corn liquor's goin out."

Another deacon jumped up and said, "Why don't ya hush?"
Another deacon jumped up and said, "Why don't ya hush?"
"You know you drink corn liquor and your lie's a horrible stink."

One sister jumped up and she began to shout.
One sister jumped up and she began to shout.
"I believe I can tell ya'll what it's all about."

Another sister jumped up, she said, "Why don't ya hush?"
Another sister jumped up, she said, "Why don't ya hush?"
"You know he's abandoned, and you outta hush your fuss."

I was in the pulpit, I's jumpin up and down.
I was in the pulpit, I's jumpin up and down.
My sisters in the corner, they're hollerin Alabama bound.

Grabbed up my suitcase and I took off down the road.
Grabbed up my suitcase and I took off down the road.
I said, "Farewell church, may the good Lord bless your soul."
You know I wish I had a heaven of my own.
You know I wish I had a heaven of my own.
I'd give all my women a good ole happy home.

I'm gonna preach these blues and I'm gonna choose my seat and sit down.
I'm gonna preach these blues and I'm gonna choose my seat and sit down.
But, when the Spirit comes, I want you to

Big Bill Otter's Sprees and Frolics

     The reader of Huckleberry Finn who thinks that the author has perhaps exaggerated the violent, semi-lawless towns with their drunks, duels, feuds, and frauds, all enacted against the violent background of chattel slavery, finds in William Otter’s autobiography History of My Own Times a putatively nonfiction depiction of much the same scene.
     Little is known about why or how Otter, a plasterer by trade, happened to publish this volume in 1835. The curious thing about Otter’s narration is not his working-class perspective, but his self-concept. The subtitle promises “A Series of Events, and Musical Incidents Altogether Original.” In fact, the word “musical” here apparently means something like entertaining, and to Otter nothing was more amusing than causing pain to people and animals. He was a tavern habitué and progressed from youthful adventures in which he and his crew would simply overrun a drinking spot in order to steal liquor and break things to elaborate conspiracies with fellow drinkers to play pranks which sometimes resulted in real physical harm as well as destruction of property. The entire book consists of his boastful narration of his endless “sprees” and “frolics,” mostly directed against Blacks, Irish Catholics, or trusting acquaintances, though occasionally with an affluent butt such as the “dandy,” Dr. Vanpike, in whose face he contrives to piss. Otter is the sort of joker who purchases itch powder and laxatives; he tricks a man into drinking turpentine and tosses lime into a monkey’s face. He is a large man who was quite willing to have a physical confrontation. He relates a contest on which two men grab each other by the ears and then head-butt. Otter by his telling had far the hardest head.
     He was particularly fond of attacking minorities. He describes ushering in Christmas by lurking outside the midnight mass to harass the Catholics when they emerged and participates in rioting against the Irish in New York City. He sent a goat up the aisle of a black church and then beat the worshippers to the ground when they emerged, noting with satisfaction that he spared neither sex or age. He liked to pick up extra cash by capturing escaped slaves. By his own account he caused livestock and pets to be badly injured and tortured, and killed a dog in front of its owner (whose tears inspire his laughter). He had no hesitation about stealing in small ways, though he was a hard-working tradesman as well.
     Disreputable, nasty, and wicked as these activities sound, he seems to have had little trouble recruiting comrades to assist his plots. Though often the initiator, he elicited applause from his cronies for what they regarded as his enterprise and wit. In middle age he was popular enough to be elected burgess (or mayor) of his town.
     The story is organized by his “frolics,” with almost every paragraph running until the episode has ended, some going on for pages with great strings of paratactic, coordinated clauses. Otter’s use of slang and colloquial syntax and grammar is entertaining and his stories move rapidly.  In spite of the repetitive accumulation of similar anecdotes, the book reads smoothly; one hears the waggish tone of the raconteur. Apart from hanging out in barrooms, the author later owned one, and there can be little doubt that many of these tales found oral expression a great many times before they appeared on a printed page.
     Literary parallels pointed out by Otter’s editor, Richard B. Scott include George Washington Harris’ Sut Lovingood and Davy Crockett’s popular autobiography, and Scott also speculates on the political and historic implications of the book. Otter was a Jacksonian Democrat. The gentility of the rising American middle class would never tolerate his high jinks, and the Great Awakening of his day would see him simply as a lost sinner. Yet perhaps the most significant reading of the data encoded in Otter’s autobiography would focus on the unselfconscious, unrestrained ego assertion so often associated with masculinity, so high-spirited, so at home with alcohol and violence. He managed to set down upon the page sufficient information that we can almost understand Jackass films, the schoolyard bully, and the dreadful grins often evident in photos of the perpetrators of lynchings.


William Otter, Richard B. Scott ed. History of My Own Times or, the Life and Adventures of William Otter, Sen. Comprising A Series of Events, and Musical Incidents Altogether Original. Ithaca and London: Cornell University Press, 1995.