Trouble in Mind (song)
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| "Trouble in Mind" | |
|---|---|
 Sheet music cover | |
| Single by Thelma La Vizzo with Richard M. Jones | |
| A-side | "Fire in the Mountain" |
| Released | 1924 |
| Recorded | May 15, 1924 |
| Genre | Classic female blues |
| Length | 2:56 |
| Label | Paramount |
| Songwriter | Richard M. Jones |
"Trouble in Mind" is a vaudeville blues-style song written by jazz pianist Richard M. Jones. Singer Thelma La Vizzo with Jones on piano first recorded it in 1924 and in 1926, Bertha "Chippie" Hill popularized the tune with her recording with Jones and trumpeter Louis Armstrong. The song became an early blues standard, with numerous renditions by a variety of musicians in a variety of styles.[1]
"Trouble in Mind" has been called "one of the enduring anthems of the blues as hope for the future even in the darkest of times".[2] In many versions, new lyrics are added. However, most usually include the well-known verse:
Trouble in mind, I'm blue
But I won't be blue always
'Cause I know the sun's gonna shine in my back door someday[3]
The song has roots that pre-date blues. Two spiritual songs from the 1800s have been identified as antecedents: "I'm a-Trouble in De Mind", published in the Slave Songs of the United States (1867);[4] and "I'm Troubled in Mind", cited in The Story of the [Fisk University] Jubilee Singers and Their Songs (1880).[5] Other folk song collections from the early 1900s include similar titles, but the lyrics are not the same as those later used by Richard M. Jones.[5]
Jones' lyrics deal with thoughts of suicide.[4] Early recordings include the verses:
Sometimes I feel like livin'
Sometimes I feel like dyin' ...
I'm gonna lay my head
On the lonesome railroad line
Let the 2:19
Satisfy my mind
Despite the sense of pain and despair, music writers such as Adam Gussow and Paul Ackerman point to the hope engendered by the refrain "I won't be blue always ... For the sun will shine in my back door some day".[6][7] Blues historian William Barlow calls the song "the anthem of the classic blues genre"[4] and writer Steve Sullivan describes it as "one of the most indelible blues compositions of the 1920s.[5]
Musically, the song is an eight-bar blues, used with variations in other early classic female blues songs, such as "Ain't Nobody's Business" (written by Porter Grainger and Everett Robbins in 1922) and "Nobody Knows You When You're Down and Out" (Jimmy Cox, 1923).[8] One music transcription shows an eight-bar chord progression in the key of G major in common or 4
4 time at a slow tempo:[9]
I V7 I7 IV ♯IVo I ii7 V7 I I7 ii7 V7
Another has a simplified version with the lyrics: "Trouble in [I] mind. I'm [V] blue. But I [I] won't be blue al- [IV] ways, 'cause the [I] sun's gonna shine in [V] my backdoor some- [I] day".[10]
