How to sing the Blues

• Most Blues begin, "Woke up this morning".
• "I've got a good woman" is a bad way to begin the Blues, unless you stick something nasty in the next line, like "I got a good woman, with the meanest face in town".
• The Blues is simple. After you get the first line right, repeat it. Then find something that rhymes.. sort of: "Got a good woman _ with the meanest face in town. Got teeth like Margaret Thatcher _ and she weighs 500 pound."_ The Blues are not about choice. You stuck in a ditch, you stuck in a ditch; ain't no way out.
• Blues cars: Chevys and Cadillacs and broken-down trucks. Blues don't travel in Volvos, BMWs or Sport Utility Vehicles. Most Blues' transportation is a Greyhound bus or a southbound train. Jet aircraft ain't even in the running. Walkin' plays a major part in the Blues lifestyle. So does fixin' to die.
• Teenagers cant' sing the Blues. They ain't fixin' to die yet. Adults sing the Blues. In Blues, "adulthood" means being old enough to get the electric chair if you shoot a man in Memphis.
• Blues can take place in New York City, but not in Hawaii or any place in Canada. Hard times in St Paul or Tucson is just depression. Chicago, St Louis and Kasas City are still the best places to have the Blues. You can't have the Blues in any place that don't get rain.
• A man with male pattern baldness ain't the Blues. A woman with male pattern baldness is. Breaking "yur leg coz you skiing" is not the Blues. Breaking "yur leg cuz an alligator be chomping on it" is.
• You can't have no Blues in an office or a shopping mall. The lighting is wrong. Go outside to the parking lot or sit by the dumpster.
• Goodplaces for the Blues: Highway, jailhouse, empty bed, bottom of a whisky glass.
• Bad places: Ashrams, gallery openings, Ivy League institutions, golf courses.
• No one will believe it's the Blues if your wear a suit, 'less yu happen to be an old ethnic person and you slept in it.
• Do you have the right to sing the Blues? Yes, if; you're older than dirt; you're blind; you shot a man in Memphis; you can't be satisfied.
• Blues is not a matter of colour. It's a matter of bad luck. Tiger Woods cannot sing the Blues. Gary Coleman could. Ugly white people also got a leg up on the Blues.
• If you ask for water and Baby give you gasoline, it's the Blues. Other acceptable Blues beverages are wine, whisky or bourbon, muddy water, black coffee.
• The following are not Blues beverages: Mixed drinks, kosher wine, Snapple, sparkling water.
• If it occurs in a cheap motel or a shotgun shack, it's a Blues death. Stabbed in the back by a jealous lover is another Blues way to die. So is the electric chair, substance abuse and dying lonely on a broken down cot. You can't have a Blues death if you died during a tennis match or getting liposuction.
  
• Some Blues names for women: Sadie, Big Mama, Bessie, Fat River Dumpling.
• Some Blues names for men: Joe, Willie, Little Willie, Big Willie.
• Persons with names like Sierra, Sequoia, Auburn and Rainbow can't sing the Blues no matter how many men they shot in Memphis.
• No matter how tragic your life, if you own a computer you can't sing the Blues.