There’s an old saying: It takes one to know one. Well, what if there was a song built around that idea? And what if that song was a classic country number, a folk tune performed by the greats, from Pete Seeger to Johnny Cash? Well, that song exists and it’s called, “Worried Man Blues.”
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It’s a song that has been around since before 1930. But for the meaning of lyrics and the history of the work, let’s explore more here below.
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Worry and Hope
Life is comprised of balance. The pendulum need not swing too far one way before it comes back from where it came. Watch any Star Wars film, and you’ll hear messages about good and evil always seemingly working against one another. Yet one side never wins out completely. And that is the underlying message of this song.
Passed down orally over the years before recording devices became popular, “Worried Man Blues” shows sadness and relief. While the lyrics of the song may change by various degrees depending upon who sings it, the general message of the tune remains clear via these repeated lyrics,
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
It takes a worried man to sing a worried song
I’m worried now, but I won’t be worried long
We all know what it’s like to fret. And it can help to hear someone sing about that, to reflect back your fears in a work of art to know that you’re not alone. But then we get the final line in the refrain, to let us know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, something beyond the worry.
As the song develops, we learn that the singer of the song has been taken into custody, though we don’t know why. The singer relays,
I went across the river, and I lay down to sleep
When I woke up, had shackles on my feet
And now that he is captured, he yearns for his love, who is “gone.” And whether relief comes for the singer in this life or the next (or the afterlife), he remains hopeful.
The Carter Family and More Artists
In 1930, the first family of country music, the Carter Family, recorded a rendition of the song for the Victor Talking Machine Company. Some 10 years later, famed folk singer Woody Guthrie cut his own version. Pete Seeger included a version on his 1955 record, Folksinger’s Guitar Guide. Seeger also sang a version of it in 1966 with June Carter and Johnny Cash. More recently, Devo, Van Morrison and others have also made the song their own.
Final Thoughts
In the end, this is the type of song that will last forever. It was never written to earn record sales. Instead, it was made to elucidate the heart of a human being. Every frail person experiences worry and the feeling that they are locked into something not of their own making. And while that may or may not be literal prison, it’s a metaphor we can all understand. We know what it’s like to be separated from the object of our affection, we know what it means to fret.
So, when a song like this comes along and subsists for a century, it’s because it’s simply true.
Photo by Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images
