“Trouble in Mind” & the Heart of the Blues
I first heard Big Joe Turner’s rendition of “Trouble in Mind” as it was playing in a busy Starbucks some winter afternoon. It wasn’t the song itself necessarily that caught my ear, but the irony: the ululating strut of the blues didn’t seem quite right as the sonic backdrop for a coffeehouse. When I went home and listened to it in its entirety, I came to the sense that I had never heard a song like it before, and I didn’t really know if this was good or bad at first. It seemed to me then that “Trouble in Mind” was a song only made to strum on the heartstrings of sadness. In my playlist of favorite songs, I didn’t usually allow any space for these kinds of songs, which I probably would have described as “mood-killer music.” I have never been a fan of performative sadness, full of cheap and facile substitutes for an emotion that powers much of the machine of human life. When dealing with blues music, I used to always think of a brand of performative sadness, a simple way of packaging it as entertainment. “Trouble in Mind” was the first song that began to change my mind on this.
As I later found out, “Trouble in Mind” is a song that has been covered by dozens of singers and musicians, making it one of the most popular blues standards of the 20th-century. Though the lyrics are credited to pianist Richard M. Jones, its origins aren’t known for certain. Like many blues songs, it might have existed in some form long before it was ever officially written down, perhaps as a ditty on the tongues of rural black people who could not write the lyrics down. As these folk songs pass through time, musicians naturally sought to put their own personal spin on the music, and thus we have ended up with many different versions from a lyrical and structural standpoint. Some of the more famous artists to have covered the song include Sam Cooke, Aretha Franklin, and Nina Simone.
Big Joe Turner’s cover of “Trouble in Mind” remains my favorite of the many versions. A natural R&B shouter, Big Joe Turner’s voice has a commanding presence, a deep register that ambles along the line between singing and wailing. He has the power to evoke sorrow quite easily, using fluctuating vocal inflections to mimic the distinct sounds of actions such as begging and sobbing. Recorded in the late 1950s, Turner departs from the original vaudeville styling of the song, using a chord progression that follows the descending format of R&B instead. As a result, the melody is lacquered with an overtone of melancholy, a piano line foundering into a hypnotic and downcast rhythm. Turner begins with a verse that can be found throughout almost all versions of the song:
“Trouble in Mind, I’m blue / But I won’t be blue always / ‘Cause the sun is gonna shine in my backdoor someday”
The strength of Turner’s vocal delivery makes him an authoritative presence while the wavering in his voice transmits an emotive vulnerability. He lingers on various notes, drawing them out and giving melismatic twists to his phrasing. This dexterity lends a certain credence to his story; as he sings, it seems impossible to not believe this song to be a sincere and heartfelt account of his life’s experiences. Like so many classic blues singers, he knows exactly how powerful his voice alone can be in manipulating the mood and emotions of his audience. Even with such a dynamite vocal performance from Turner, the traditional lyrics of this first verse are what makes “Trouble in Mind” a blues song paragon. The speaker, in spite of their deep sadness, is consoled by the prospect of one day finding true happiness, that light shining through the backdoor. The verse typifies blues musicians’ constant desire to escape the realms of sadness that indwell their lives. The declaration “I won’t be blue always” reflects an inner triumph, claiming happiness as an assured destination as opposed to a mere fantasy.
There are many variations of the verse after the refrain. In the classic version of the song, the one that Big Joe Turner sings, the second verse contains a grim description of suicidal thoughts:
“I’m gonna lay my head / On a lonesome railroad line /And let that 2:19 train / Pacify my mind”
This verse is confusing, for sure. It seems to betray the hopeful and assured attitude of the one preceding it. In Turner’s version, he rumbles these lines off with an equal conviction in his tone, and it’s hard to determine in what direction he is steering the narrative. This glaring self-contradiction doesn’t allow for any real resolution in Turner’s version, leaving the listener with a drawn out sense of uncertainty. It’s a mixed signal. When Turner loudly proclaims “I’m blue,” I believe him, but when he says the sun is bound to shine for him someday, I also believe him. Even still, the paradox of the song’s lyrics serves an important purpose in its relative tenor: “Trouble in Mind” means to realistically portray an intertwined relationship between the forces of sorrow and hope. In playing this card of contradiction, ‘Trouble in Mind” establishes a kind of sadness that still holds tight to the hope for a better future. Rather than clashing as opposites, these attitudes actually rely on one another. As blues music captures so often, the song traces the journey of raising optimism out of the depths of sorrow, an act necessary for surviving in a world that is endlessly cruel and oppressive.
In a third verse unique to Big Joe Turner’s version, Turner reveals the reason for his depressive episode:
“Trouble in mind, am I blue / Yes, I’m awful blue today / ‘Cause my baby up and left me / And I’ll be crying all day”
Turner uses this verse to upend the emotional affect of this moment; with this verse, the song becomes about heartbreak, specifically the brutal hysteria that follows losing someone you loved so deeply. In my view, this decision to insert a new verse into the song pays off tremendously for Turner, as he is able to build up a pathos that enables the listener to more willingly surrender their empathy, and make them relate on a more intimate level. By the end of the song, as he returns to the refrain, calling on hope as a way out of troubling times, it is clear that he has forged “Trouble in Mind” into a personal prayer for better days. Still, he holds space in his heart to let sadness run its course, a decision that I think might be the most interesting thing about the song. He proves to the listener that sorrow is not his enemy; lack of any feeling at all is.
Blues music has a reputation for being dark and sentimental and irredeemably sad. This affects even how people remember and retell the lives of its musicians; the musical exploits and accomplishments of many blues musicians get overshadowed by narratives of their personal issues: alcoholism, drug addiction, infidelity, to name a few. With how much music has grown since blues first took root, it is easy for us in modern time to look back and see blues musicianship in monochrome, as a language of sinners and degenerates. This, of course, could be connected with the common historical fallacy that black people throughout the generations have constantly drowned in the misery of their existence. This narrative is not only false, it really couldn’t be further from the truth. Even facing a reality of racial oppression, the black pursuit of salvation has never wavered, and blues music is an ultimate testament to that.
In a stand-up bit on the origins of black music, comedian Roy Wood Jr. hits the nail right on the head: “Black people have been trying to tell y’all forever that we had some issues. We invented the blues! We literally invented an entire genre based on sadness, that’s how sad we were.” It’s a tongue-in-cheek remark, but it really does speak to the thematic constancy pumping throughout the music.
Contrary to some perceptions, the blues is not a genre solely concerned with wallowing in bitter misery or in seeking out attention. More often than not, blues is dedicated to being honest about the unique experience of black melancholy, taking up the chance to present the bare soul and all the tensions and trials that it must endure, all the sorrows and desires it must hold. It is a folk tradition designed to speak to and for black people of the backcountry. Just like its people, blues music plays off an abiding sense of spirituality, showing up in both subtle and striking ways. Behind the curtain of melancholy, blues music pays special attention to the task black people have had to take up for survival: finding light to hold onto even when darkness is so abundant. To that end, blues performers are not simply weepers; they are storytellers. They relate personal stories of the mundane black experience in America—tales of pursuit and loss, romance and heartbreak, leisure and labor, loneliness and identity. These stories, formed from fragments of real memories and experiences, amplify the voices of all those people whose lives are largely unaccounted for in history. In this respect, the music reveres the complexity of black people as fully emotional and sentient humans with countless stories worth telling. This is not only a kind of light, but also a small act of revolution—in the wake of great suffering, every mustered bit of human dignity can stand against the oppressive system. In music and culture, black people control the agenda and free themselves enough to participate in the project of being human.
Blues music absolutely embraces sadness, but it does so with the unique belief that sadness is a necessary pathway to finding meaning in life. Blues stands by the premise that you must willingly engage the sadness within you in order to drive it out. Just as “Trouble in Mind” demonstrates, blues music is not about the moment of giving up, but the moment of giving in, to inner fire, the natural human drive towards free expression, a spiritual actualization that claims that sadness can be a valuable currency in the search to find lasting peace and purpose in life. Blues music takes that important leap of faith we are often too afraid to make alone: the belief that the sum of life’s struggles can move us in ways that remind us of the power of love, of hope, and of ourselves. Hence, when I hear Big Joe Turner’s full-toned and spirited moaning, I do not think of it as the plea of a hopeless man, strumming on his guitar chords in resignation to the weight of the world. I think of that resilient heart of his, welcoming the light through the backdoor, knowing that it will come to him someday, the freedom he had been longing for all this time.