Hear My Train A Comin'

Here we go again.

I know it's coming and there's not a d*** thing I can do about it.  I feel the anxiety, and the disconnected feeling that presages a major depressive episode.  I often think of Jimi Hendrix's "Hear My Train A-Comin'" at times like this because it feels like I'm standing on the tracks, watching the train come, but I can't get out of the way.  Nothing speaks to me at times like this than the old, traditional blues.  Yeah, I know what you're thinking, but Jimi was playing old "country" blues on that song, which meant it was just him, a guitar, and a mic.  After listening to Robert Johnson's "Cross Road  Blues" a little while ago, I wonder if I were at that lonely crossroads of Highway 49 and 61, and Papa Legba showed up with an offer to make me well, would I make a deal with the devil like Johnson did in the legend?  It's funny how mysteries can conjure up suspicions - today we call them "urban legends" or "conspiracy theories."  I imagine that back then, Papa Legba, Old Flint, Scratch, or whatever name the devil was going by in the community at the time, he was often to blame in those legends.

Back then, performing secular music was considered "selling your soul to the devil."  Young Robert's wife died in childbirth, which her family said was due to the curse he brought on himself for selling his soul to the devil, i.e. performing secular music.  I've wondered if the songs "Cross Road Blues" and "Me and the Devil Blues" combined with the "curse" story from his in laws was the result of the legend of his "selling his soul" at the crossroads.  In contrast to the Faustian story that later developed, in his day crossroads were considered powerful places where the Devil could be conjured up to teach, in Johnson's case, guitar playing, because it was believed that musicians had a suspicious power over women.  Again, what would I do not to feel this way?  I do live in a town that has two major crossroads, and "Crossroads" is in the name of many local businesses, but I don't know how to conjure up old Papa Legba so I couldn't if I wanted to.  Not that I believe the legends, they just make me think.  I guess getting lost in fantasies helps a bit.

"I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
I went to the crossroad, fell down on my knees
Asked the lord above "Have mercy, save poor Bob, if you please"
  --  Robert Johnson, Cross Road Blues

Funny that in the song he asked the lord above for mercy instead of conjuring up the opposition.....  But then rock and roll later would be accused of the same evils as the old blues men, some of whom became preachers themselves.  Ironic.

But the blues came from people who had it hard - really hard, harder than I can imagine, and the music was their release.  I can relate to how they felt, though the reasons may be different.  Happy music makes me sad when I feel like this, because I just can't relate to feeling happy.  Wish I could.