If you live under that system for so long, then it don’t bother you openly, but mentally, way back in your mind it bugs you. . . . Later on you sometime will think about this and you wonder why, so that’s where your blues come in, you really bluesy then, y’see, because you hurt deep down, believe me, I’ve lived through it, I know. I’m still trying to say what the blues means to me. So I sing about it.[35]
I don’t want to trivialize the experience of black people in the US, but I relate to this statement by King in my own way, and I sure wish I had the courage to sing the blues. But maybe I’ll need another way. Maybe that harmonica I have. Can I learn to play it?
