Symbolism, Imagery, Allegory
True Blues
The blues, like it's name suggests, is all about the tough stuff: the things that make your life feel like a long, rainy Monday afternoon when there's nothing new on Netflix and nothing in the fridge but a sad Tupperware full of week-old lasagna.
And that's when it's a happy blues song. The depressing blues songs take it way, way darker.
The blues evolved from African American spirituals during slavery, just to give you a taste of how bleak the issues that blues touches on can be. And it became popular in the 1920s and '30s, when slavery had been abolished but lynchings and Jim Crow Laws were a regular part of life for Black Americans…to, again, give you an idea of some of the insanely rough things that blues addresses.
So it's no surprise that the blues would rear its depressing-yet-cathartic head in a novel that takes place smack dab in the middle of wartime.
Jonesy's a blues singer—dude brings pretty much everything back to the blues. (Fair enough: he's stationed in a war zone.) And the First Squad is glad to have him. Besides providing free entertainment, Jonesy's blues allows him to talk about the war honestly, in all its irony and darkness.
Because the situation in Iraq looks a little something like this: you've got soldiers, many of whom grew up poor, killing some rich people but also civilians—all oppressed people, just like the people who started the blues.
Dang. Just the thought of that is enough to make us want to spend the next hour listening to Bessie Smith.
But the blues isn't just a way to express the painful realities of life. It's also a way of bringing people together. When the squad meets all the injured children, Jonesy sings the blues and drums on the back of his helmet to make a kid smile. (Aww.) And when the squad is arguing about having to travel to a village and apologize for a bombing that killed civilians, Jonesy breaks up the fight by singing:
Well the bombs are falling, yes the bombs are coming down
Baby, them bombs are falling, they're really coming down
Sometimes they on target, and sometimes they runnin' wild
But I'm so glad they ain't falling on my mama's child
And that's the truth!
We all started clapping for Jonesy. The guy could really sing. (6.50-56)
The song, however bleaktastic, brings the unit together. It emphasizes that they're all scared of the same thing—bombings. It takes something dark and turns it into art.
That's what the blues does, again and again. It acknowledges the tough stuff, and puts it into a form that makes people smile…against all odds.