from the notebooks of craig swanson
I love words. For most of my life I have loved knowing the subtle distinctions between the meanings of different words; knowing unusual words; finding out where words come from.
I remember years ago getting quite excited when I heard that Elton John also loved words. I was half listening to the radio when I heard him sing “… and I guess that’s why they call it the blues.” Cool! I had often wondered how the blues got its name.
Sure, the color blue evokes emotion, but is this merely a result of cultural conditioning? Or is it something that is innate? And even if it is in us, wouldn’t someone still have been the first to have observed it? Now, thanks to Mr. John these questions would finally have an answer. All I had to do was wait to hear the song again.
“Time on my hands could be time spent with you” Huh? “Laughing like children, living like lovers” What the…? “Rolling like thunder under the covers” Hey! This isn’t the etymology of the word blues. “And I guess that’s why they call it the blues.” Why this is a stupid love song!
And at that fateful moment in 1984, I made a promise to myself: From that day forward I would never again look to popular culture for word origins.
As it turns out, according to the Oxford English Dictionary, the word “blues” is a shortened version of “blue devils” and goes back to an early 1600s expression meaning “a baleful demon.” Sometime around the late 1700s, blue devils came to mean melancholy or despondent.
And so my friends, years later I find myself older and wiser, and no longer fooled by the likes of Kris Kristofferson, author of “Me and Bobby McGee.” For though he can write a mean melody, he is no linguist. Freedom is not in fact a synonym of “nothing left to lose.”
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