Get out the microscope, because we’re going through this poem line-by-line.
Lines 29-30
I ain't happy no mo'
And I wished that I had died."
- Whoa, getting kind of bleak!
- This is the end of the chorus where we get the punch line, but this one is a real bummer.
- The singer wishes he wasn't alive in line 30, but just a couple of lines ago he was going to stop his frowning. What's up with this? Maybe singing the blues and showing emotions is how he "puts his problems on his shelf."
Lines 31-34
And far into the night he crooned that tune.
The stars went out and so did the moon.
The singer stopped playing and went to bed
While the Weary Blues echoed thorough his head.
- The musician has rocked out all night. In fact he's rocked out so hard that the stars are exhausted and go out like a lamp. One might say they've "run out of gas." (Ooh, a Physics pun!)
- The sun is coming up and the crowd is getting ready to stumble out into the early dawn.
- The singer comes home and passes out, but the music is such a part of him that it's stuck in his head.
Line 35
He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.
- This last line is a brain teaser.
- Sleeping like a rock is usually a good thing. Right? But sleeping like a dead man is a pretty dark image to associate with sleeping like a rock.
- It's not like we'd expect a bluesman to sleep like a baby.
- He said he wanted to die in the song, but this seems different. Maybe he is like a dead man, because he rests in peace.