AP Lit: Louis Armstrong

In case you missed it, we did a little quizzy thingy in class today. We also discussed the homework, and talked and wrote a little bit about Louis Armstrong's "Black and Blue."

Here's Armstrong, and text of the song.

(from http://www.photos12-vintage.com/images/FRN03049_122.jpg)

Black and Blue
- Louis Armstrong

Cold empty bed...springs hurt my head
Feels like ole ned...wished I was dead
What did I do...to be so black and blue

Even the mouse...ran from my house
They laugh at you...and all that you do
What did I do...to be so black and blue

Im white...inside...but, that dont help my case
Thats life...cant hide...what is in my face

How would it end...aint got a friend
My only sin...is in my skin
What did I do...to be so black and blue

(instrumental break)

How would it end...i aint got a friend
My only sin...is in my skin
What did I do...to be so black and blue

(from http://www.lyricsfreak.com/l/louis+armstrong/black+blue_20085352.html)

In your journal, explore either the author’s words or the musical things you hear going on. Try to describe the sounds you hear. May you focus on:
• the instruments
• the structure
• Armstrong’s voice
• the mood of the song
• or…if you’re a wimp (☺), just focus on the words

From Sparknotes.com

Ellison works blues and jazz—specifically that of Louis Armstrong—into the novel to complement the narrator’s quest to define himself. Because jazz depends on the improvisational talents of individual soloists and because it developed primarily among African-American musicians, it serves as an elegant and apt metaphor for the black struggle for individuality in American society. It also makes an appropriate soundtrack, as it were, for a novel about the search for such individuality. Armstrong, widely considered the most important soloist in the history of jazz, almost single-handedly transformed jazz—which originally evolved as a collective, ensemble-based music—into a medium for individual expression in which a soloist stood out from a larger band.

In the Prologue, the narrator listens specifically to Armstrong’s “(What Did I Do to Be So) Black and Blue.” This track relates directly to Invisible Man on a thematic level, as it represents one of jazz’s earliest attempts to make an open commentary on the subject of racism. Fats Waller originally wrote the song for a musical comedy in which a dark-skinned black woman would sing it as a lament, ruing her lighter-skinned lover’s loss of interest in her. Later, however, Armstrong transformed the piece into a direct commentary on the hardships faced by blacks in a racist white society. Like Invisible Man, the song’s lyrics emphasize the conflict between the singer/speaker’s inner feelings and the outer identity imposed on him by society. The narrator listens to Armstrong sing that he feels “white inside” and that “my only sin / is in my skin.” By placing this song in the background of his story without directly commenting on it, Ellison provides subtle reinforcement for the novel’s central tension between white racism against blacks and the black struggle for individuality.