What is “St. Louis Blues”?

Handy’s 1914 song, among the most-recorded of its era; the 1925 Bessie Smith / Louis Armstrong version pairs a blues voice with a jazz cornet in call-and-response.

All songs

St. Louis Blues

W. C. Handy, Bessie Smith & Louis Armstrong · 1914

Blues

Handy’s 1914 song, among the most-recorded of its era; the 1925 / version pairs a blues voice with a jazz cornet in .

Handy published it in September 1914. The verses are a ; the middle strain is a 16-bar habanera — what Handy called a tango — so the song is a ragtime-shaped piece with a blues heart, not a simple loop. It became one of the most-recorded songs of its era (musicians nicknamed it “the jazzman’s Hamlet”). The version this page plays is Bessie Smith’s January 1925 Columbia side, with Louis Armstrong answering her on cornet: a blues voice and a jazz horn in call-and-response.

Bessie Smith & Louis Armstrong, 1925

Watch on YouTube

Open in Piano Roll

Lyrics

English — Handy, 1914

W. C. Handy

Public domain in the United States. The 1914 sheet has further verses; this is the opening strain plus the gypsy verse — the core of the Bessie Smith recording.

I hate to see de ev'nin' sun go down

Hate to see de evenin' sun go down

Cause my baby, he done lef dis town

Feelin' tomorrow lak Ah feel today

Feel tomorrow lak Ah feel today

I'll pack my trunk, make ma get away

St. Louis woman wid her diamon' rings

Pulls dat man roun' by her apron strings

'Twant for powder an' for store bought hair

De man I love would not gone nowhere

Refrain

Got de St. Louis Blues jes as blue as Ah can be

Dat man got a heart lak a rock cast in the sea

Or else he wouldn't have gone so far from me

Been to de Gypsy to get ma fortune tole

To de Gypsy done got ma fortune tole

Cause I'm most wile 'bout ma Jelly Roll

Gypsy done tole me, “don't you wear no black”

Yes she done tole me “don't you wear no black”

Go to St. Louis, you can win him back

Source: Wikisource, “St. Louis Blues” (Handy Bros., 1914)

Lyrics are reproduced briefly for commentary and teaching, with attribution and a link to the source. They are not a substitute for the publisher’s edition.

Where it belongs

What is the blues?Where did the blues come from?What is 12-bar blues?What is call-and-response?

Where it comes from

Open in full map

places