Take Me Home to That Shining Star
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Artist:
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Album:Charley Patton Vol. 3 (1929 - 1934)
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Stressing that the principal theme of the country blues, if not all blues, is sexual relationships, Oakley writes:Most frequently the core of the relationship is seen as inherently unstable, transient, but with infinite scope for pleasure and exultation in success, or pain and torment in failure. this gives the blues its tension and ambiguity, dealing simultaneously with togetherness and loneliness, communion and isolation, physical joy and emotional angiush. In Patton's blues, even the sound itself has the feeling of tension, with damped down, 'dirty' toned, monotonously repeated bass figures giving a heavy emotional undertow, lightened by the sensously rising and sliding notes, driving and swinging with the joy of release (55).As I imagine it "Bird Nest Bound" begins and ends in the present moment where the speaker is propositioning a new love interest to take a ride in his car and tryst in the country. The middle verses provide backstory on the relationship from which he's on the rebound. The primary tension here seems to be between the unambiguous pleasure and comfort of nesting in the nest of the female body, so to speak and the speaker's deep ambivalence about nesting in the wider domestic and emotional connotations of the word. My useless book The Blues Line (which I am starting to find my way around, making it less useless) highlights the problem of blues transcription by giving the line "hard luck is at your front door / blues is in your room" as "ah love is at your front door / blues are in your room." Lyrics from the net:Come on, mama, go to the edge of town Come on, mama, go to the edge of town I know where there's a bird nest, built down on the ground If I was a bird, mama, if I was a bird, mama, I would find a nest in the heart of town (spoken: Lord, you know I'd build it in the heart of town) So when the town get lonesome, I'd be bird nest bound Hard luck is at your front door, blues are in your room Hard luck is at your front door, blues are in your room Callin' at your back door, "What's gonna become of you?" Sometimes I say I need you, then again I don't Sometimes I say I need you, then again I don't (spoken: You know it's the truth, baby) Sometime I think I'll quit you, then again I won't Oh, I remember one mornin' stand in my baby's door, (spoken: Sure, boy, I was standin' there) Oh, I remember one mornin' stand in my baby's door, (spoken: Boy, you know what she told me?) "Look-a here papa Charley, I don't want you no more" Take me home sweet home, baby, to that shiny star Take me home now to, that shiny star (spoken: Lord, you know I'm just stayin' there) You don't need no tellin', mama, take you in my carI'd be curious and delighted to hear people's take on that Shining Star. I can hedge a metaphor, but wonder if it's a specific reference or traditional fixed blues convention. Somewhere I saw a glossary of blues terms. But where?
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