Langston+Hughes+Songs

Langston Hughes was very interested in Blues and Jazz music. He had even written poems to by spoken/sang to blues or jazz music. These songs were written by him, and used very similar techniques of alliteration, illusion, imagery, and metaphors. He recorded them with a buddy of his, Harlem. Some of these songs include:

Dream Boogie
Good morning, daddy!

Ain't you heard

The boogie-woogie rumble

Of a **dream deferred**? (Alliteration)

Listen closely:

You'll hear their feet

Beating out and beating out a -

You think

It's a happy beat?

Listen to it closely:

Ain't you heard

something underneath

like a -

What did I say?

Sure,

I'm happy!

Take it away!

Hey, pop!

Re-bop!

Mop!

Y-e-a-h!

Juke Box Love Song
**I could take the Harlem night**

**and wrap around you,** (Metaphor)

Take the neon lights and make a crown,

Take the Lenox Avenue busses,

Taxis, subways,

And for your love song tone their rumble down.

**Take Harlem's heartbeat,**

**Make a drumbeat,** (Personification)

Put it on a record, let it whirl,

And while we listen to it play,

Dance with you till day--

Dance with you, **my sweet brown Harlem girl.** (Imagery)

The Weary Blues
**Droning a drowsy syncopated tune,** (Personification)

Rocking back and forth to a mellow croon,

I heard a Negro play.

Down on Lenox Avenue the other night

By the pale dull pallor of an old gas light

He did a lazy sway ....

He did a lazy sway ....

To the tune o' those Weary Blues.

**With his ebony hands on each ivory key**

**He made that poor piano moan with melody.**

**O Blues!**

**Swaying to and fro on his rickety stool** (Imagery)

He played that sad raggy tune like a musical fool.

Sweet Blues!

Coming from a black man's soul.

O Blues!

In a deep song voice with a melancholy tone

I heard that Negro sing, that old piano moan--

"Ain't got nobody in all this world,

Ain't got nobody but ma self.

I's gwine to quit ma frownin'

And put ma troubles on the shelf."

Thump, thump, thump, went his foot on the floor.

He played a few chords then he sang some more--

"I got the Weary Blues

And I can't be satisfied.

Got the Weary Blues

And can't be satisfied--

I ain't happy no mo'

And I wish that I had died."

**And far into the night he crooned that tune.**

**The stars went out and so did the moon.**

**The singer stopped playing and went to bed**

**While the Weary Blues echoed through his head.**

**He slept like a rock or a man that's dead.** (Imagery)