Austerity Blues Redux with Timothy Clarke

What's up everyone? You're listening to DS106 Radio. DS106 for life.

Hey everybody. This is Tim Clark and Taylor is with me here. Hello. And welcome

to the next session. A real quick thanks to Dewitt's and Pate's. That was super fun.

And nice audio production there. Very atmospheric. That was a really neat session.

This one's going to be way worse, I promise. Entirely because of me.

But before we get started, my inspiration for this was I really liked the idea for a track

that allowed you to talk about the year that you've had. And the other thing that I really

wanted to do was something that I thought Paul Bond would want to listen to. So a shout out to

Paul. One of my DS106 and DS106 Radio heroes. He's a great DJ. He's a walking encyclopedia of good

music and local radio. So I thought I'd play some blues because I know from time to time he's jumped

on and turned me on to some really amazing blues and R&B artists. So I'm calling this the Austerity

Blues. I did a very little bit of research for this. So I noticed as I was sort of searching

around that there is a book called Austerity Blues that has to do with higher education. It was

written, I believe, in 2016. And it addressed the sort of defunding of higher education across large

university systems. So I think New York, California, and possibly Illinois. That's not what

this is. This is hopefully kind of a sound off show. I'm going to put a phone number in the

Discord channel here. And Taylor, what do you think? Are you up to give this a try? It might

not work at all. >> Yeah, I can test it. Yeah.

>> Or just to sort of ride this train with me. Okay, so the number is 267, and this is a US

number, 267-227-0106. And it took me so long to game the Google Voice ecosystem to get a phone

number that ended in 106. I'm really proud of that. So I hope that I can get someone at least

to call in here in a little while. We're not ready just yet. But once we open up the lines,

it would be really great. And I think we can pull it off. We'll see. If not, you know,

nothing ventured, nothing gained. Okay, so just for a little bit of context, my name is Tim Clark.

My official title is digital learning librarian. But I share with many of the folks over the last

couple of days, a sort of instructional technologist, instructional designer role,

as well as some librarian stuff. I oversee the Domain of One's Own project at the college where

I work, Muhlenberg College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. And I've been there in various

roles. I keep doing the same work. They just keep changing my title. I've been there for about 15

years. >> That sounds familiar, I think, for lots of people, I imagine.

>> Yeah. And we're a smallish private liberal arts school in eastern Pennsylvania, near New Jersey

and New York. And there are lots of colleges and universities within our general vicinity,

which is a great thing, I think. But over the last couple of years, I think it's contributed

to this sense of competitiveness for what is perceived to be an ever shrinking pool of

college age students. And so one of the straw men that I'd like to kind of knock down

in this is talking about this notion of an enrollment cliff or a demographic cliff that's

been kicking around, at least in the United States, for a while. I would imagine this is

pretty much a U.S. centric sort of conversation. Hopefully, our friends elsewhere will find the

music, at the least, entertaining. So anyway, in the post-COVID sort of financial anxiety

and with nearby college and university closings and mergers, that's sort of a national thing as

well. Again, this idea, what I think of as a sort of a fallacy around this idea of an enrollment

cliff. My school has kicked off a sort of new round of the austerity blues. And so I thought,

you know, I would draw on the blues for inspiration. And maybe if you all are experiencing

something similar to this out there, you might have some insights and some observations and

some strategies for coping with the austerity blues as well. Again, the number is 267-227-0106.

And just to sort of set the musical stage here, I thought we might listen to a blues song and

listen a little more closely than we might if we were just sort of driving or had music on in the

background. I'm not an expert on the blues. I appreciate them very much. I can count 12 bars.

That's about as far as I can go. And I can generally tell one style of blues from another,

you know, if it's boogie woogie or, you know, those kinds of things.

The thing about the blues that I appreciate the most, I think is, and this might be contrary to

what some folks impression of the blues is, I find it to be very uplifting. It's a source of

intelligent humor, resistance in the face of what I would consider nearly unimaginable hardship.

It can't be overstated that the blues like jazz and hip hop is one of the greatest cultural

contributions the United States has given to the world. And it's the African American musicians,

and particularly Southern African Americans, those who are part of the great black diaspora,

who invented and spread this musical form and made it central, really, I think, to the US

musical experience. It's the ground stone, it's the cornerstone for bluegrass, for rock and roll,

for so many other forms and genres of music.

Almost any popular genre right now, honestly, and especially, particularly in Western hemisphere

music, you can root part of it at least back to the blues, if not most of it. It's amazing.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it really, to me, pulling the call and response from West African music and

integrating that gospel music, it's really, I think, like you said, something that can't be

acknowledged enough. So I thought we would start with a song by Leroy Carr. He's on the piano and

the vocalist, it's called Big Four Blues. This song is about 100 years old. And one of the great

blues names I found, Scrapper Blackwell on guitar. So this one's for you, Paul. I hope you like it.

Big four block this morning,

Act V, break up day.

Big four block this morning,

Act V, break up day.

And it sounds so lonesome, 'cause you're taking my baby away.

Big four, big four, won't you please turn your train around?

Big four, big four, won't you please turn your train around?

'Cause I sat all down and out with my head hung down.

I tried to be as good to that woman as one man could be.

I tried to be as good to that woman as one man could be.

And I mean it's a shame the way she went and left for me.

Yes, I'm drowning out, ain't got no money to ride no train.

Yes, I'm drowning out, ain't got no money to ride no train.

Yes, I'm drowning out, ain't got no money to ride no train.

Yes, I'm drowning out, ain't got no money to ride no train.

So what'd you think?

First of all, I've never heard that one.

And I wouldn't call myself super knowledgeable about the blues,

but I enjoy it a lot.

And saxophone is my main instrument that I play.

And so I like playing it, but I'm, again, not very knowledgeable.

But I love blues guitar, specifically, I will say.

It's probably my favorite, especially older blues stuff.

So yeah, loved it.

Yeah.

So I thought, from a close listening, I'm just really curious to the other

listeners out there, do you feel it?

Do you feel the familiarity of the form?

Do you know how to anticipate maybe the chord changes or the way,

at the end of 12 bars, it sort of walks back around to the beginning?

Even the way it sort of resolves at the end of the song

is very comforting and familiar.

And I think that's the great contradiction.

That's the magic of the blues, is the subject matter can be really sad,

right?

He's lost the love of his life.

She's jumped on a train, and he doesn't have the money

to buy a ticket to follow her.

And he's asking, hey, can you just look the other way

and let me hop on this train?

And the brakeman is turning him away and saying, get out of here.

That's a really sad story, right?

It's complex.

But because you're, I feel, sharing this story with the singer,

you're kind of sort of shouldering it together.

And also, the familiarity of blues music

means that you're participating in a way that's different, I think,

than other forms of music, where you really

don't know what's coming next.

Or there are more possibilities.

It's a larger sort of--

there's not just left and right that you can choose from,

like a choose-your-own-adventure, right?

Well, absolutely.

And building on that, a huge part of blues

is that it's improvisational, right?

Or parts of it can be, right?

So either, obviously, like examples of music

that have solo sections in them, of course, right?

But even the songs themselves are likely built on improvisations

that are made possible by that familiar and easy-to-grasp

structure you're talking about.

And I think that itself has--

I think there's--

I mean, you can sit here and draw a million parallels between that

and how education works, right?

In ways that I love and I think speak to even some fundamental things

we know about learning and how people learn.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah, that's absolutely true.

And I think the major sort of thing I'd like to sort of place out there

to kick around for the next 45 minutes or so

is this notion of catharsis, right?

How that feels to us, to feel connected, to feel like we can anticipate.

And even just as a listener, there's a participatory sense to the blues

that I think is different from other genres of music.

And so piggybacking on top of that, if you're

at an institution that's stuck in the austerity blues,

if you're hearing things like tuition-driven institution

or maximizing return on investment and all

of these sorts of neoliberal buzzwords that

tend to find their way into the conversation when you come down

with the austerity flu, when your institution is in the austerity blues,

that notion of call and response, knowing what to anticipate,

knowing how to improvise within the framework of what you're provided,

all of those things I think are really helpful strategies and lessons

for how to keep your spirits up, how to maybe not take the bait for some

of the things that an administration might ask of a faculty or a staff,

how to prepare in advance if you're seemingly caught off guard with something

that's happening, if you recognize it within the sort of paradigm of the blues,

then you know what the response is.

You know how to be improvisational in those moments

because you're following along the pattern that

has repeated itself in higher education many times over the last 35, 40 years.

That's kind of where I'm coming from with the rest of this.

But I have talked an awful lot.

Does that seem like a pretty good setup, Taylor, for the next few songs?

Yeah.

All right.

So let's do it.

I'm going to play a song by a man named Corey Harris.

He is a Bates College graduate, another fine, small liberal arts school in Maine.

He is also the recipient of a MacArthur Genius Grant.

And he is an incredible musician.

So we're going to hear "Fish Ain't Biting" from Corey Harris.

- Check it.

Give a man a--

fish.

Teach him how to fish.

Bring the whole school to his door.

But what's he going to do when the water dry up and the fish ain't biting no

more?

Hm.

[MUSIC - COREY HARRIS, "FISH AIN'T BITING"]

[MUSIC - COREY HARRIS, "FISH AIN'T BITING"]

Fish ain't biting.

Fish ain't biting 'round here no more.

Well, fish ain't biting.

Fish ain't biting no more.

They're taking up the catfish and grinding up the bone.

Well, I was down East Texas, Jefferson Town.

I had no catfish.

Had to turn around.

Well, fish ain't biting.

Fish ain't biting no more.

Taking up the catfish and grinding up the bone.

Well, the Reverend Worm got him a catfish farm.

He said, boy, hook the worm and let the line on down.

Fish ain't biting, baby.

Fish ain't biting no more.

Taking up the catfish and grinding up the bone.

[MUSIC - COREY HARRIS, "RED RIVER RUNNING DEEP"]

Red river running deep and wide.

See my baby on the other side.

Well, fish ain't biting.

Fish ain't biting no more.

Baby, pay my back.

Baby, baby, leave Texas on the next bay.

Fish ain't biting.

Fish ain't biting no more.

They're taking up the catfish and grinding up the bone.

Fish ain't biting.

Fish ain't biting.

Fish ain't biting round head no more.

Fish ain't biting no more.

All right now.

They're taking up the catfish and grinding up the bone.

Fish ain't biting.

[MUSIC - COREY HARRIS, "RED RIVER RUNNING DEEP"]

[MUSIC - COREY HARRIS, "RED RIVER RUNNING DEEP"]

I never had a pocket full of money.

I never had a ruby red ring.

All I ever had was you, babe, to sit and listen to me sing.

I've got the blues, the empty pocket blues.

Well, I never had a barrel full of money.

I never had a big head of land.

All I ever had was you, babe, and that's a fact.

I've got the blues, the empty pocket blues.

Some people got barrels of money, bushels of ruby red rings.

But they ain't got a man like mine,

and they don't know how to sing.

I've got the blues, the empty pocket blues.

Now, some say the blues are sorrowful.

Some say the blues are sad.

But when I sing the blues to you,

they come out feeling glad.

I've got the blues, the empty pocket blues.

Now, don't put your money in a barrel.

Don't waste it on a ruby red ring.

Give it all to your own little girl

to fix your dinner while you sing.

I've got the blues, the empty pocket blues.

I've got the blues, the empty pocket blues.

All right, welcome back.

That was Odetta, the one and only remarkable queen

of the blues, as I believe she's been called,

National Medal of the Arts and Humanities recipient,

Lifetime Achievement Award from the Library of Congress,

numerous honorary degrees, and a proud graduate of Los Angeles

City College with empty pocket blues.

So let's see if anyone's brave enough to call in.

If not, I've got a couple more songs to play,

and we can take it from there.

I do want to be clear that I'm not

trying to make light of the serious state of finances

for many colleges and universities.

Here's just a real quick roll call

from my region, the mid-Atlantic region of the United States.

In 2022, these are all post-COVID mergers or closures.

University of the Sciences merged

with St. Joseph's University in Philadelphia.

2,420 students were affected.

In 2023, Bloomfield College in New Jersey closed abruptly.

1,300 students thereabouts were affected.

And then in 2024, Pennsylvania College of Health Sciences

also merged with St. Joseph's University, 1,800-plus students.

St. John's University, Staten Island,

closed due to low enrollment.

861 students were affected.

The College of St. Rose in Albany, New York,

closed because of financial insolvency, 2,786 students.

Wells College in Aurora, New York,

also financial difficulties, 357 students.

And Cabrini University in Radnor Township, Pennsylvania,

right down the road from where I live,

closed for financial reasons, 2,267 students were affected.

I think the one that shook our area the most,

though, was the very abrupt closing of University

of the Arts in Philadelphia.

Over 1,300 students were impacted,

many after they had already paid their deposits and tuition.

And they cited accreditation, enrollment,

and financial challenges.

Lots of other colleges and universities

have stepped up to be especially welcoming and accommodating

with respect to transfers of credits and courses

and those kinds of things.

This is a significant issue.

But I think we need to place at least partial responsibility

where I feel it lies.

And that's the significant disinvestment

on part of state and federal governments in higher education

broadly.

I think one of the calls and responses in the Austerity

Blues should be that education is a public good.

And it benefits all of us, all of society.

And the financial burdens that these colleges and universities

are carrying have disproportionately

been placed upon the students themselves,

borrowing increasing amounts of money,

making it much more challenging for them to start their lives.

And some would argue that that is by design.

So I just wanted to put that out there

and to acknowledge those facts so

that I wouldn't be misinterpreted as, say,

maybe glib or paying too little attention to the challenges

that colleges and universities face.

Any thoughts about that, Taylor?

Yeah, you see it all over, too.

There's even just in--

I'm in Wisconsin.

And there's been plenty of that even in Wisconsin,

which there's definitely less concentration of schools

here than there is in your neck of the woods.

But it's hitting hard, I think, everywhere.

And it's hitting hard specifically--

well, not specifically, but I will say especially

the smaller schools, I think.

And it's hard, because it's a number--

there's a lot of reason--

you mentioned before, right?

Hey, we're experiencing lower enrollment.

But there is a lot of specific factors, too, right?

And it's very difficult or maybe complicated,

I guess, to be paying attention to this stuff,

because you're at any point dealing

with a mixture of sadness around the state of things,

anger at possibly leadership or any number of people

or government or--

yeah, there's a lot of things that you can be--

you can place that--

places you can place that anger, which that's

what the blues is about, is that complicated malaise

of feelings, I think.

But yeah, I don't think you're being glib at all.

I think there--

I love that you're bringing the blues into this conversation.

And this conversation that we're having

as folks who work in and around higher ed, I think, constantly

and recognizing of--

we need an output in some ways that isn't just wallowing in it,

I think.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Absolutely.

And we need to share each other's burdens.

And I think that's also what the blues is about.

But as we'll hear in a couple of songs coming up,

the blues is also about finding creative ways

of getting around what seem to be intractable obstacles.

So let's do that.

Let's listen to one more song.

This is "Gimme a Penny" by Big Mama Thornton.

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

[MUSIC - BIG MAMA THORNTON, "GIMME A PENNY"]

All right, y'all.

In my defense, the mute button is very, very tiny.

[LAUGHTER]

We have Joe on the phone.

Can everybody hear Joe?

It wouldn't be DS-106 if we didn't find some dead air.

I can-- yeah, we can hear him.

All right, so--

Or some non-dead air.

Right, yeah.

All right, so I'm 75%.

That's passing grade.

All right.

Hey, Joe, how's it going?

Pretty well.

How are you?

Oh, I'm great.

It's good to hear you.

Like, you bear some responsibility for this habit

that I formed of DJing on DS-106 in the attendant music

collection.

Because there was a set of sets that you and Daniel were doing

that really convinced me I could do this and would enjoy it.

So I appreciate that.

Oh, yeah.

Well, guilty, I guess.

Yeah.

But I hope I've developed this into something like a thought.

I think one of the really useful things about the blues

is that it marks that communal experience.

I think that-- and whether that's, like,

specifically dealing with segregation or racism or poverty

or more broadly-- I remember one of those rock documentaries

that came out in the '90s featured-- I think it was Rufus

Thomas saying, look, if you come home and the house is dark

and the pans are empty and your woman is gone,

I don't care what color you are, you have the blues.

So I think there's a lot in the music that gives a communal

experience.

And I think one of the things I see from the position

of a relatively privileged small school that

has had some enrollment trouble lately,

I think we could use some austerity blues so that we don't

fall into the trap of thinking, well, it's because they did

something wrong.

It's because they're different.

Or it's not coming for us because we're special.

I think finding some ways to actually get into it

would be healthy for us so that we

don't hit any of those traps.

Yeah, that's a great point.

You know, I should point out that 80%

of the college and university closings between 2004 and 2020

were for-profit institutions.

So the vast majority of school closings

that have left students with debt and no degree

have not been the non-profit schools,

whether state or private.

Or I should say public or private.

That's one thing to put out there.

But it's a real thing, I think, because it's

been documented so well in Tressie McMillan Cotton's book.

That also was a burden that was disproportionately

shouldered by first-generation students, black students,

and especially black women.

Right?

You know, I guess the other thing that I would say

is just over half of students impacted by a school closure

never re-enroll in college.

And that's heartbreaking to me.

And 52.9% is the number that I pulled.

Wow.

So that's another thing, I think,

for all of higher education to acknowledge and to work around.

Yeah.

Well, I think that's going to be one of the things that's

really interesting regionally.

And I think--

All right.

Sorry about that, folks.

I think I was just trying to push this thing a little too

hard.

But I do appreciate Joe calling in.

And hopefully you all got to hear the excellent points he

was making.

It took me a minute or two to catch

that things had locked up.

So while I try to put everything back together here,

I'm going to jump back in and play another tune.

And then I'll see if I can't get Taylor back on the line.

Again, my apologies.

Flying a little too close to the sun, I think.

But "Money is the Name of the Game" by Coco Taylor

should make everything a little better.

[VOCALIZING]

It's a pity.

No time in dirty sheets.

Oh.

It's a pity.

It's a pity.

Oh, dirty, dirty shame.

How can a poor girl make it?

Yeah.

I said when money is the name of the game.

I used to have good credit all over town.

Signed my name, put no money down.

Things done got tough, y'all.

And Coco needs some.

Now my name won't buy me a piece of the pie.

A piece of paper, come on.

It's a pity.

Go down in dirty shame.

Tell me how can a poor girl make it?

I said when money is the name of the game.

[VOCALIZING]

[VOCALIZING]

[VOCALIZING]

Sitting here thinking of the good times all have passed.

If I could turn back the time, I know my luck would last.

It's a pity.

Go down in dirty shame.

Tell me how can a poor girl make it?

I said when money is the name of the game.

[VOCALIZING]

[VOCALIZING]

[VOCALIZING]

It's a dirty shame.

I killed someone.

It's a pity.

Oh, pity.

It's a pity.

It's a pity.

It's a dirty, dirty shame.

I need money.

That's what I want.

I need money, baby.

I need money.

That's the name of the game.

All right, well, thanks for sticking through that little

meltdown with me.

I really appreciate it.

And yeah, so I'm just going to talk for a minute.

We've got about 12 minutes left.

I want to play one or maybe two more songs.

I just want to talk a little bit about my experience at my college.

So we come out of COVID, and I think at the urging of the board

of trustees, a fancy consultancy was hired to basically give us a

health check as an institution from a competitiveness perspective.

And unsurprising to me, after we paid them money to sort of give

us this health check, they came back and told us that there was

an urgent situation that just absolutely had to be dealt with and

handed us off to other consultants who would then help us with

those issues that they had identified.

Again, talking about the enrollment cliff, what I think of as a

fallacy, and the reason that I say that is the national percentage.

And this is February 2023, US Census Bureau and American Community

Survey one-year estimate data.

So this is about as good as you can get in the United States on

levels of educational attainment.

And they tend to, the Census Bureau tends to look at 25 or older folks.

The national average of having completed a four-year degree is

37.7% of the population 25 years or older.

That includes four-year degree and advanced degrees.

Okay.

If you look at some college and associate degrees, that number

jumps up to nationally, I want to say it's in the high 40s, low 50s,

which is really, really great.

But Allentown, the city where our college is, that number for

four-year degree educational attainment for 25 and older is 20.3%.

And Allentown's demographics and composition has been changing a lot

over the last 15 or 20 years.

We have an increasing, growing and vibrant community of Latino folk.

And I don't think that it is ethically defensible to have a college

that takes the advice of consultants to say, we need to do better to

compete for this ever shrinking pool of privileged, financially well-off,

predominantly white folks who live in the Northeast and the mid-Atlantic

states, which was sort of the message that we got.

We're not competing for this apparently shrinking pool of folks who would

be our first choice to have as students.

Instead of taking that initiative and taking that energy and those

resources to say, lobby the state of Pennsylvania, which is second to

last in investment in higher education.

That's changed a lot under our new governor, but the early round of

resource allocation has gone as it should, in my opinion, primarily to

community colleges across the state of Pennsylvania.

But that still can't immediately address what has been decade after

decade of disinvestment and so on for higher education.

So this notion of a enrollment cliff or a demographic cliff, I think,

is disingenuous at best because what it's really talking about are folks

whose parents have college degrees, who are graduating from schools

whether public or private, that tend to feed the higher education system

in the United States.

Okay.

The last thing that I'll say is all of these initiatives that have spun

out of what we learned from the consultants have been to revise our

curriculum, which involved nearly every member of the faculty and much

of our staff in a sprint that took place in a single academic year.

And shuffling our advising, dramatic changes to how we do first-year

advising, and then also looking at potential lineouts of different majors

and minors, potentially even departments down the line, all of the kinds

of things that one would expect would be the advice that comes once you

catch the austerity blues at your institution.

And the other thing that sort of followed after that is we've lost a lot of

faculty and staff, right?

We've even had, for the first time in the 15 years that I've been there,

a number of layoffs that come abruptly and really impact the morale and

good faith, I think, of the faculty and staff that work at a college

or a university.

So we need to look out for one another.

Joe's comment, I hope everyone heard it, about how the blues is a communal

activity, the catharsis of the blues, recognizing the patterns of the blues,

how to respond when you're given an opening to take that improvisational run,

and how to sort of work within the ensemble of the blues, I think,

has a lot of application.

If we sit and drink our coffee or tea and have our quiet moment in the morning

and prepare for how we will respond to hearing that such and such might be

leaving or that we're overworked, which is a legitimate sort of situation,

we need to be able to respond in a way that can recognize and acknowledge

the blues, the austerity blues, but also present a kind of a creative way

out of it.

And with that, I would like to play another tune, another of the great,

great blues names that I came across.

This is Suitcase Blues for all the faculty and staff, my dear colleagues who

are now no longer my colleagues.

This is by Sippy Wallace.

And here we go.

Any second now.

Well, my suitcase is packed, trunk is undone.

You know by that I ain't gonna be here long.

But I'm scared to go down that big road by myself.

Lord, I'm scared to go down that big road by myself.

I love you, baby, but your wings I just can't stand.

So you get you another woman, I'll get me another man.

'Cause there ain't no loving, there ain't no getting along.

Now, you know, baby, you've always treated me wrong.

No more baby, she runs me crazy.

I ain't got me no more baby, Lord.

I ain't got me no more baby, Lord.

Lord, I ain't got me no more baby now.

I'm leaving you, honey, but it almost breaks my heart.

I'm leaving you, papa, but it almost breaks my heart.

But remember sometimes that the best of friends must part.

I hear the whistles blowing, I guess I'll be on my way.

Give me my suitcase and I'll see you some other day.

Suitcase Blues, Sippy Wallace.

And as I'm getting ready to wrap things up, I'm just going to close with this.

Blond Willie Johnson's Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground

was etched into two golden records called the Voyager Golden Record

that were launched into space in 1977, one on each of the Voyager spacecraft.

And both are now billions of miles from the sun,

one 15 billion miles plus and the other 12 billion miles away from Earth.

Voyager 1 is the farthest human-made object.

And on both of those spacecraft is a blues song, a beautiful blues song,

Dark Was the Night, Cold Was the Ground.

So that just helps me to put into perspective the true contribution that the blues has made,

not just in our culture, but across the world.

And if you get a chance to listen to that song, I'd encourage you to do it.

Anyway, thanks everyone for your time and for listening.

Sorry about that one little glitch, and I hope we can do it again soon.