Episode 3 The Devil's Music


Episode 3

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Some people believe that the blues is a kind of protest music,

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that the blues is the cry of the oppressed.

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In this programme, we want to examine that idea.

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Is blues a form of Black protest music?

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And when we say "oppressed", what do we mean anyway?

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Well, in the case of Black people in America,

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we mean quite specific things.

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First, slavery.

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The only reason Black people are in America in the first place

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is because they were taken there forcibly as slaves.

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Second, racism.

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Once slavery was ended, a systematic pattern of laws was established

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discriminating against Black people.

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Blacks were segregated.

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They had inferior facilities of every kind -

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education, jobs, housing, income.

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So, the third mark of oppression,

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reinforced by segregation, was poverty,

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and there are plenty of blues about that.

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Let's see Big Joe Williams, filmed in 1976,

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with a song he used to sing in the '30s,

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Providence Help The Poor People, Those Who Cannot Help Themselves.

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# Well, providence help the poor people, oh

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# Those cannot help theirselves

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# Well, providence help the poor people

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# Those cannot help theirselves

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# When you're working 15 hours a week, boys

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# Whoo, boys You can help someone else

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# Well, there was a toll a-headin'

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# Won't your hands all go lace What d'you say?

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# No, I got a job waggonin'

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# See every name

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# Providence help the poor people

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# Those cannot help theirselves

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# When you're workin' about 15 hours a week

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# Whee, well, boys Try to help someone else

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# Well, I woke up this mornin'

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# Just about half past eight

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# Started down on Pine Street to get my meal tickets traded to me

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# No

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# Providence ain't gonna help no more

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# Yeah, when you see Big Joe comin'

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# Whoo, my head be the maestro

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# Well, now, you stole a hen

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# I want you hen to crow

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# Said no, I can't get no, Lord, my meal bill

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# I can't live any more

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# Woah, the providence help the poor people

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# Those cannot help theirselves

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# Wait till you help them 15 hours a week, boys

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# Whoo, Lord, boy, help someone else

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# Well, I woke this morning Went out to the old Red Cross store

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# To get me some flour and meal

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# Say you can go back home, boy

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# Cos providence ain't gonna help no more

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# Yeah, it ain't gonna help you no more

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# Yeah, won't see me again with my mom

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# Happy just by the store

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# It's hard, you see. #

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Big Joe used to sing that to the people standing in line

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for the soup kitchens set up for the unemployed in St Louis

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during the Depression.

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At that time, millions of people were out of work, Black and White.

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But for Black people, it was worse. Last hired, first fired.

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For this next singer, Henry Townsend,

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blues very clearly came from poverty and racism.

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He sees blues as a relief from pressure.

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Townsend came from Mississippi, but as a boy he left the Deep South,

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hoping to find more freedom and opportunity in the North.

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He settled in St Louis.

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There, with the help of his blues, he made a living,

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playing both guitar and piano.

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He'd play at speakeasies and at private parties,

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picking up dimes where he could.

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# Oh, yeah, Lord, yeah

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# I know just what I should do

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# Oh, yeah, oh, yeah

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# I know just what I should do

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# Way you've been acting, yeah, of lately

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# I have to get rid of you

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# Ain't it a shame, ain't it a shame

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# The way things are going today?

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# Ain't it a shame, ain't it a shame

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# The way things are going today?

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# Well, I've tried so hard But I can't never have my way

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# Oh, last night

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# I was wakened up with my nightmare dreams

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# Yeah, Lord, last night

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# I was wakened up with all them nightmare dreams

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# I was dreaming Old Devil

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# Was really gonna get my loving queen

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# So I'm gonna have to say I'm leaving

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# Although I don't wanna go

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# Yeah, I'm gonna have to say I'm leaving

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# Although I don't wanna go

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# Well, I just came for your work

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# I ain't standing round here any more

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# So I'm gonna wave my hand I'm gonna wave my hand, bye-bye-bye

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# So I'm gonna wave my hand

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# I'm gonna wave my hand Bye-bye-bye

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# So when I leave for good

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# Please don't sit around and cry. #

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All the people in this programme used St Louis as a base at some point.

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Henry Townsend still lives there.

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Our next singer was rather different from the others - Victoria Spivey.

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She became a very big star.

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She travelled on all the showbiz circuits, Black nightclubs,

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Black theatres and so on.

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And she made a lot of money in the '20s and '30s.

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But she never forgot what blues meant

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to the ordinary folk who bought her records.

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This song, which she originally recorded in 1928, is about TB,

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a disease associated with poverty, bad housing and poor food.

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The film was shot in 1976.

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A few months later, Victoria Spivey died.

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Perhaps one should say that her performance here is musically

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well below her best, but in a way, that's the thing about blues -

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it's the feeling, the emotional involvement,

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the commitment of the performer that count,

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far more than the virtuoso mechanics of technique.

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You decide whether it's protest music.

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# TB's all right to hell

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# But your friends will treat you so low down

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# TB's all right to hell

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# But your friends will treat you so low down

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# Don't you ask them for no favours

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# They even stop coming around

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# Oh-h-h-h

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# TB's killing me

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# Mmm-mmm

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# TB's killing me

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# Well, you can just bury my poor body

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# Lord

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# In the deep blue sea

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# Now, when I was up on my feet

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# I could not walk down the street

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# For you men looking at me

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# From my head to my feet

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# Though now

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# TB's killing me

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# You can just bury my poor body

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# Lord, in the deep blue sea

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# And don't you worry about me. #

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TB Blues, Providence Help The Poor People,

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they're songs about poverty and disease.

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And there are plenty of those.

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But in a way, that's not the point.

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The blues are not directly about oppression.

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But in a culture shaped by oppression,

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as Black culture in America has been, music has a symbolic significance.

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Everyone knows about poverty and racism,

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so no-one needs to spell it out.

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Everyone's experienced it. So protest isn't quite the word for blues.

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It's not rhetoric,

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but a knowledge of shared experience, that gives the music its power.

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# I was standing at the crossroads

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# With my head hung down on the ground

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# Yes, I was standing at the crossroads

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# With my head hung down on the ground

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# So now I'm tryin' to find my babe

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# And you know she's not around

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# I worked hard for my baby

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# And she treats me like a tramp

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# I worked hard for my baby

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# And she treats me like a tramp

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# She must have been tired of living

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# I'll put her six feet in her grave

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# You know, I don't want no woman

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# If she won't pay me no mind

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# You know, I don't want no woman

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# If she won't pay me no mind

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# She done knocked her job in

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# She tried to drive me out of my mind

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# I believe

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# I believe I'm goin' back home

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# I believe

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# I believe I'm going back home

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# I gotta find my baby

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# She done left my hand at home. #

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That was James DeShay playing in his own club,

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the Santa Fe Bar in St Louis.

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His clientele are working people, like himself,

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and he works by day in a chemical factory.

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This last song is typical late-hours, after-midnight stuff,

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the old sho 'nuff, slow, sad, mournful blues.

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But is it only sad?

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Isn't there a lot of joy, the kind of affirmation I've been talking about?

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# I met a handsome stranger

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# I persuaded her

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# To be my wife, to be my wife

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# I met a handsome stranger

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# I persuaded her

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# To be my wife, to be my wife

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# I wanna tell all you people

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# I have made a mistake in life

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# A mistake in life

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# She cut my pleasure in two

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# The same as she had a pocket knife, a pocket knife

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# She cut my pleasure in two

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# The same as she had a pocket knife

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# A pocket knife

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# I wanna tell all you people

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# I have made a mistake in life

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# A mistake in life

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# Don't ever marry in a hurry

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# You may make a mistake in life

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# A mistake in life

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# Don't ever marry in a hurry

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# You may make a mistake in life

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# A mistake in life

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# Instead of marrying your own

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# You may marry another man's wife

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# Another man's wife

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# When you get ready to marry

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# You'd better think long and speak twice

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# Think long and speak twice

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# When you get ready to marry

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# You'd better think once and speak twice

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# You'd better speak twice

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# If you make a mistake in marrying

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# You'll be ruined for the rest of your life

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# For the rest of your life

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# Don't ever marry in a hurry

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# You may make a mistake in life

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# A mistake in life

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# Don't ever marry in a hurry

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# You may make a big mistake in life

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# A mistake in life

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# Instead of marrying your own

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# You may marry another man's wife Another man's wife

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# She'll cut your pleasure in two

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# The same as she had a pocket knife

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# A pocket knife

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# She'll cut your pleasure in two

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# The same as she had a pocket knife A pocket knife

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# I wanna tell all you people

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# I have made a mistake in life

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# A mistake in life. #

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Thank you. Thank you.

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Thank you very much.

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