beale st. grew blues boys
like share croppers tended crops
out of necessity like
life depended on it
beale st. grew blues boys
blues boys
like hard times grew celebrations
of overcoming praise of existence
signs of persistence
chords of resistance
plucked from scraps spun into gold
we still here music
kicking at life like a stubborn mule
them the blues overstanding being
broken how you carry on
bruises overstood in song
delivered giving praise
you will never understand
if you ain’t ate the blues
for breakfast lunch & dinner
cause nothing else could
feed you danced away sorrow
laughed until tears dried
picked up the pieces and made
confetti celebrating you can
talk it but you don’t can’t
ain’t never gonna know it
like you don’t know limbo
celebration of survival
blues rolled like a river out
the delta musical prophets
rolled out the sound that
carried a song that told a
story that refused to die
so it painted itself blue
tells the truth is alive
in the middle of southern nights
that have rolled down highways
traveled on railways to northern shores
flowing from east coast dives
the water songs from share croppers sons
bb was one grown in the
shadow of the plantation
rose from sharecropping
followed louie armstong to show stopping
riley b king took a new name for a new incarnation
left the rudeness of kill you young poverty
to become king of the blues
carrying culture from the water
from the delta grown on beale st.
where they grow the blues
took the song that told the story
that refused to die painted blue
truth flowing
from a beale st blues boy
b string breaking
real american artist forged in the belly
kicking at its sides with chords
so blue they broke through
to where the truth of america resides
music is the truth its life
no where to hide
15 blues grammies
blues foundation hall of fame
rock & roll hall of fame
billboard best musicians of all time
the soloist
blues is life it tells the story
just like any other song
t bone burnette says he gave us
everything all that mattered
all that meant something
to us darker than blue still
singing the blues the truth is alive
t bone says all that
remains is the duty to
keep his grave clean