(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue

Song with music by Fats Waller and lyrics by Harry Brooks and Andy Razaf

Or perhaps you prefer this monumental version. If Ethel Waters and Louis Armstrong have played your song, then I think you can go on to your rest with some peace of mind. You did all right and probably did some good.

Growing up, a few songwriters that pre-dated World War II dominated the music that was still being played from those days. Irving Berlin might have been the most common. George Cohan, Duke Ellington, Hoagy Carmichael, Cole Porter, and a few others were in the mix. Berlin probably gets the nod because he wrote those holiday classics which found their way into movies that became staples of life. How we forgot Fats Waller, I’ll never know.

That’s not entirely true. I could guess. Listen to the music. While Berlin and those others wrote any number of songs that felt timeless, something about Fats Waller has always felt modern to me. If you could take him and his work into a modern studio, something about all of it feels like it would work out just fine. I can’t explain it-maybe it’s the arrangements or the delivery or the songs themselves. Perhaps it’s the heavy reliance on blues and song structures that remain ever-present.

So, here’s an interesting thought.

Is the history that we are most inclined to forget the very history that we find easiest to repeat? If we think that we’re more likely to just do it again, then we merely cast aside all memory of the first go round. It’s the first step to being doomed to repeat the failures of the past, as well as the successes. Just as a pop music star’s ignorance of his predecessors grants him the freedom to replicate their discoveries, the businesses which promote the pop star have little to gain by keeping those earlier artists in our minds when more money can be made by creating a living phenomenon. Let’s call it the totalitarian principle. Maybe it applies outside of the arts, also.

Dipping into history is one good way to fight the ennui engendered by that awful sense that you’ve seen this hot mess before. Another might be playing Fats Waller songs loud and often. You get an interesting reaction.

The hope I carry is that we might be due for another Fats Waller revival. They seem to come around every few decades. Those other songwriters I mentioned above have had their moments back in the sun and it feels about right for Waller to have his turn.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 182 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.

Public park in Youngstown, Ohio

Mill Creek Park

Right now, we live a few blocks from a large urban park. It mixes with our neighborhood at odd angles, so we can easily walk to areas not as well traveled by other visitors. The park also sits between us and a lot of the places that daily life takes us, so we have to drive around it. Even so, I do take the occasional detour through the park, whether or not it makes me a little slower. Oddly enough, I don’t seem to drive out through the park- always on the way home.

I remember one of those stop-and-smell-the-roses parables from my youth that told of a man who would arrive home from work at the end of every day. Before he went inside, he paused and touched the old oak tree in front of his house. Each morning, he touches the huge tree on his way to his car. One day, an observant neighbor asks him what’s up with the daily tree touching. The man explains that he always leaves his work burdens with the tree so he can fully enjoy his home life. Each morning, he picks up his work burdens and finds them just a little lighter.

An awful lot of lesson stories fall into the well of cloying, which is why we have James Thurber. Having established my cynicism, the reality is that a lot of those stories we hear in our youth stay with us. We re-craft them with the hard won lessons that life throws at us.

One of the privileges

of growing up in Youngstown was being so near to Mill Creek Park. It was more than an easy stroll away, but a kid on a bike had no trouble reaching it. We got lost and found ourselves on its paths. We climbed trees and boulders. Exploration fired our imaginations. The park hosted more picnics and games than I can recall. We learned to golf at the Par 3 course. We learned to drive by staying on the road along its winding and confusing turns.

Decades ago, I moved away from Youngstown, but had occasion to return quite a bit over the years. Anyone who found themselves in a car that I was driving can vouch for that strange look that would come over me. Before any objections could be raised, I would steer us into the woods, confident in finding our way out-perhaps not exactly closer to our destination.

As time passes, the lesson of that man with his old oak tree has proven to be less about burdens and making your local flora suffer. My takeaway has turned out to be the renewing power of nature. That should be obvious to any creature that has not forgotten how integral the outdoors is to our existence.

What’s it all about?

You’ve Got to Check This Out is a blog series about music, words, and all sorts of artistic matters. It started with an explanation. 183 more to go.

New additions to You’ve Got to Check This Out release regularly. Also, free humor, short works, and poetry post irregularly. Receive notifications on Facebook by friending or following Craig.

Images may be subject to copyright.