I stumbled upon the following lyrics by Medieval jongleur, Rutebeuf, circa 1200s. The blues haven’t changed much in 800 years. This could be Leadbelly or Lightning Hopkins.
With my right eye, once my best,
I can’t see the street ahead …
I can’t earn a living,
I enjoy no pleasures,
That’s my trouble.
I don’t know if my vices are to blame;
Now I’m becoming sober and wise,
After the fact …
I discovered too late
That I was falling into a trap…
Now my wife has had a child;
My horse has broken his leg
On a fence,
Now my nurse is asking for money,
She’s taking everything I’ve got
For the child’s keep,
Otherwise he’ll come back home to yell…
Translated from French in Joseph and Frances Gies, Life in a Medieval Village
shakemyheadhollow 
Pretty cool! Still totally relatable all this time later~
LikeLiked by 1 person
I thought so too!
LikeLike
Haha! Brilliant! I could actually hear that ol’ blues guitar a-twanging in the background…
LikeLiked by 2 people
Haha. Thanks FictionFan.
LikeLiked by 1 person
“She taking everything I’ve got” I’m hearing Ray Davies and the Kinks.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Haha. Just like Muddy Waters said. The blues had a baby and they named it rock and roll.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I remember studying Rutebeuf at school for French. This brought up some memories. Thaks for sharing 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
I didn’t know Rutebeuf was so famous! Haha. I hope I didn’t undermine the gravitas of your studies. (Browsing that same French Medieval stuff helped me to understand where the word “undermine” came from too.)
LikeLiked by 2 people
You didn’t haha! 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is so cool. I loved it. So funny that it sounds like the Blues, or a “” crying in your beer” country song.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Interesting. I guess there’s much thematic overlap between country and blues — down-and-out, drunk, no job, romantic woes, momma tole me… The forms of bravado might be a little different, with blues emphasizing a more witty, risqué sexual bravado, and country emphasizing a more traditional, jingoistic “don’t mess with me and mine” bravado, but I’m just reaching here.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sounds reasonable to me. Is it possibke that the old blues birthed both styles?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Maybe both were spawned by Rutebeuf’s jongleurs~! Really, probably a tangled web of roots from Rutebeuf to slave songs to Appalachian hillbillies. I guess all peoples of all times have had some element of blues as part of life. As far as the immediate roots of these 20th-century genres, that calls for a music historian, not someone who’s just making it up, like me 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person