The Weary Blues

The theme of race appears in the poem's title since “The Weary Blues” ties the poem to blues. Rooted in the Black experience, the blues is inseparable from racism, slavery, and the songs enslaved Black people sang—spirituals, field hollers, work songs, and country string ballads. The blues generally reflects the suffering and determination of Black people, and Black blues musicians like Bessie Smith, W. C. Handy, and Ma Rainey popularized the genre. Thus, before even reading the poem, Hughes brings up the theme of race by placing the word “blues” in the title.

In Line 2, the speaker touches on race with the word “croon,” which sounds like “coon”—a racial slur white people could have called the blues singer in the South, New York, or anywhere in the country. The speaker then makes the singer's race clear when they announce, “I heard a Negro play” (Line 3). The word “negro” is not an outright racial slur in the poem. In the 1920s, it was another term for Black people. Now, the word is much more fraught. However, in "The Weary Blues," the word confirms that a Black man is playing the blues.

In Line 5, the speaker introduces whiteness with “the pale dull pallor of an old gas light.