To
Archy Hughes.
"Oh Aint I Got the Blues!" (1871)
Song & Dance
as sung by
Welch, Hughes & White's Minstrels
Written & Composed by
A. A. Chapman

Brooklyn, NY: J. W. Smith, Jr., 373 & 583 Fulton St.
Philadelphia, PA: Lee & Walker
New York, NY: Wm. Hall & Son
New York, NY: Chas. W. Harris
Chicago, IL: Root & Cady
[Source: 02653@LoC]

1. This world contains an awful set,
  And me they so abuse;
I’ve got a horrid fit of what
  The people call “the blues.”
The sky is “blue” as indigo;
  The ground is black as ink
I’ve not a friend in all the world
  Would stand me for a drink.

CHORUS [sung after each VERSE]
Oh aint I got the blues!
My sadness you’d excuse,
If you knew like me what ’tis to have
Such a terrible fit of the blues.

2. I think I was unlucky born,
  Tho’t was not always so,
I’ve had as brilliant prospects sure,
  As any man could show
But now I find as sole return
  For all my toil and care,
My sky, tho’ clear, is darkly “blue”.
  My road is rough and bare.

3. I had “great expectations” once
  When uncle John should die;
I hoped to get a million quite—
  Now how was that for hight?
But of these charming hopes he soon
  My mind did disabuse:
My cousins all the money got—
  I only got “the blues.”*

*(SPOKEN. Yes, and I got them pretty bad too,
I can tell you, for I had set my heart on that little pile
But such is life!)

4. And so it goes, the prettiest girls
  My hand do all refuse:
They go with other luckier chaps;
  And leave me with “the blues”
If you’d had half the misery
  In search of worldly pelf
That I have had, I need but add
  “You know how tis yourself.”