THE CHURCH OF BLUES

It's a fearful and thrilling day when you realize just how obsessed you are with the blues. When you suddenly realize, mid-song, mid-moan, mid-chord, that your passion is no longer a knee-deep brew keeping you company during bland moments-- that it has suddenly turned into an affliction of true proportions.
Working through the night on some ridiculous deadline, I dropped everything and crowded around the stereo with my roommate in a sudden blues frenzy. Going from album to album, song to song; analyzing voices, lyrics, songs, and styles, worse than any shark that ever went after blood.
A Howling Wolf song slowly starts up-- just a subtle humming, joined by an electric guitar and harmonica. After a sustained wail, the lyrics start: "Well, somebody knockin' on my door,..."
My fingers crawled around the bars of the shelf and held on tight. They call it the “Devil's Music”, but honestly, nothing ever felt that good before. I found my mind splattered against the wall behind me. Phew. You don't know what to do, it feels so right. Religious revelations aren't half this good. This is religion.
Personally, I don't even know how it started. I knew nothing about the blues at one time. I can remember smiling awkwardly and clueless at the name John Lee Hooker. I remember being forced into a B.B. King concert, and finding it extremely boring.
Well, for reasons long forgotten, I happened to stumble onto some Chicago blues, and found it kind of entertaining. Next thing I know, I'm crying over John Lee Hooker's death, and paying to see B.B. King. I'm standing in front of the speakers of a stereo by myself, listening to song after song of crackling and howling, long deceased Delta Blues legends. For hours. Wanting nothing as badly as just to sit at the back of an old country bar, watching Charlie Patton or Robert Johnson playing through the smoke, stomping their feet into the dusty floorboards.
Suddenly, I'm describing with vehement philosophical fervor the difference between Leadbelly's charm from that of Charlie Patton. Seriously, I don't know how it came to this. All I know is that I'm giving a full-blown speech that leaves some conversational partner nodding dully.
When the day comes and you realize this obsession not only occupies every strand of your thoughts, but also has control over your organs, blood, and your heartbeat-- that's when all help is in vain.
When some sweet anonymous voice, so rough that it sounds like it's going to crumble to bits at any moment, begins to moan: "The Mississippi river, you know it's deep and wide, I can set right here, see my baby at the other side,..." When it makes your insides want to evaporate and leak from your lips-- well, then you pretty much know that you're spoken for. You're trapped in the blues and you'll never again find a way out. You can call it anything you want: Reborn. Lost. Salvaged. Doomed. Redeemed. You'll never be lonely again, and you'll never be satisfied.