Dave Keats songs are © copyright protected.

Happy Blues

I've got a story here that I'm about to tell
About a subject all you music lovers should know so well.
It was true beginning of it all, what made the rock'n'roll dream come true.
That's why I'm celebrating with a song I call the happy blues.

I'm a black blind reverend, that's why I sing the blues.
So tell me what would you do if you were standing in my shoes?
Couldn't be a gambler. Aces feel the same as twos.
But I don't really care because I've got the happy blues.

I once tried cotton picking down Louisiana way
But didn't make no money, didn't know what cotton looked like anyway.
Couldn't find it. All I found was in my shoes.
But I didn't really care because I had the happy blues.

At the turn of the century my grandpappy was a slave.
My grandmammy was a house help, worked her fingers to the bone each day
But didn't worry. She knew exactly what to do.
She walked straight up to the boss-man an said "I got the happy blues".

Now the blues they take so many different shapes an' types an' forms,
There's the nigger, lonesome, I wanna die and a thousand others more.
'N' they're all from the twenties. None of them songs are ever new.
Except this one I'm singing here. The one I call the happy blues.

I got a friend called Bobby Tilling, s'pose to know about this stuff.
I tell you what I'm gonna do. I'm gonna call his bluff.
I'm gonna walk right up to him an' say "now Bobby, how do you do"?
Then ask him what he knows about the happy blues.