There's a sadness to all kinds of music if you want to hear it. There's also happiness to it if you want to hear it.

I've put up with more humiliation than I care to remember.

No one can take it away from you.

Singing about your sadness unburdens your soul. But the blues hollers shouted about more than being sad. They were also delivering messages in musical code. If the master was coming, you might sing a hidden warning to the other field hands . . . The blues could warn you what was coming. I could see the blues was about survival.

Nobody loves me but my mother, And she could be jivin' too.

I can't afford no liquor, all I can buy is beer and wine.

I never use that word, retire.