Outward Bound

A Blues Song

Written for Bradley Ramsey Pandamonium Prompt.

My attempt at a 12 bar chord progression blues song, AAB lyric structure.

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He took up the guitar and learned to make it cry

Took up the guitar and learned to make it cry

Turned all that darkness into something that could fly

🎶

He played at the crossroads with his hat turned up for coins

Played at the crossroads with his hat turned up for coins

Sang about a mercy that he felt down in his bones

🎶

Refrain

Dark was the night, cold was the ground

Dark was the night, Lord, cold was the ground

Willie Johnson's voice, the farthest human sound

🎶

Beaumont burned him out in October '45

Lord, Beaumont burned him out, October '45

Slept in char and wet newspaper, barely kept alive

🎶

He walked to get some healing and they turned him from the door

Walked to get some healing, Lord, they turned him from the door

He laid down in the ashes and he never rose, no more

🎶

Refrain

Dark was the night, cold was the ground

Dark was the night, Lord, cold was the ground

Willie Johnson’s voice, the farthest human sound

🎶

They put him in the ground without a marker or a name

Put him in the ground, Lord, without a marker or a name

The way they always buried those they treated all the same

🎶

Thirty-two years on, a man named Sagan heard the song

Thirty-two years on, Carl Sagan heard that song

Pressed it into gold and sent it where it belongs

🎶

Now Voyager carries him past the edge of everything

Voyager carries Willie past the edge of everything

Past the last of sunlight, Lord ~ still traveling, still singing

🎶

Dark was the night, cold was the ground

Dark was the night, Lord, cold was the ground

Willie Johnson's voice

still going

outward bound…