This is a 16-bar blues song. I wrote it mostly as a tribute to my growing up as part of the hillbilly diaspora. Don't take it too seriously. :) I made beans and cornbread yesterday, and it was a meal I had five or six times a week as a kid and into my thirties.
Beans and Cornbread
By Joyce Melton
Refrain 1:
I’d live on beans and cornbread if I could be with you
Oh, I’d live on beans and cornbread if I could be with you
Yes, I’d live on beans and cornbread if I could be with you
And your smile for my Sunday dinner too.
Verse 1:
I’d pluck the stars from the sky if you would be my love
I’ll pluck the stars from the sky if you will be my love
I plucked the stars from the sky so you will be my love
But we know I can’t reach that high above
Verse 2:
I’d build a cottage by the river where we could live as one
I’ll build a cottage by the river where we can live as one
I’ve built a cottage by the river where we can live as one
… And we’ll be together when each day is done
Skat:
Deedle-eedle-oo-pah!
(Instrumental verse)
Verse 3:
I’ll always be yours if you only would be mine
I’ll always be yours if you only will be mine
Yes, I’ll always be yours if you’ll be only mine
And we can own forever, one day at a time.
Refrain 2:
I’d live on beans and cornbread if I could be with you
I’ll live on beans and cornbread if I can be with you
I’ll live on beans and cornbread so I can be with you
And your smile for my Sunday dinner too.
Coda:
Just your smile for my Sunday dinner, too.
Copyright 2023 Joyce Melton
If you liked this post, you can leave a comment and/or a kudos!
Click the Thumbs Up! button below to leave the author a kudos:
And please, remember to comment, too! Thanks.
Comments
Enough to put the wind up you
Were they baked beans?
Angharad
Isn't this kind of like
from that song, The wind beneath my wings?
Or was it that bean scene from Blazing Saddles?
Sephrena
Incurable romantics.
Both of you. :)
— Emma
Beans
I suppose you could try baked but they would be a poor substitute. You really need great northern, or pinto beans, you can even mix them. You could use navy if thats all thats available. Place the beans in a big pot and add some bacon chunks, or bits of ham or even a ham bone that you have previously savaged. Gotta have a big onion well chopped. Salt and pepper a bit to start.....adjust to taste later while still cooking. You need a few hours for the beans to cook, slowly. Hard boiling will rupture the beans and thicken the broth, but leave nothing to chew. I prefer mine like a soup in a bowl, others like them drier, dipped in a pile on a plate. Some green onions on the side, hot cornbread, real butter or a GOOD margerine, maybe some skillet fried taters/onion mix or if you ever had it or money to buy some, smoked sausage to make a top dinner for when the preacher showed up for Sunday dinner.
You got it
Green onions, bread and butter pickles, carrot sticks, tomato slices, yellow onion wedges, coleslaw, or some other vegetable garnish for the plate. Fried taters as a side dish or mac and cheese. Leftover roast or cold chicken, if you need a co-star. Make chili beans once in a while for variety.
But when I was young, I didn't know what it meant to be poor. I thought we just liked beans.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Let me know if you ever make all of that,
I'll walk over to come join you.
Bob Wills would be proud...
Or Milton Brown and his Musical Brownies. Or, heck, go all the way back to Jimmie Rodgers and The Carter Family. Jump blues came out of that when western swing met boogie-woogie in the '40s. Louis Jordan had a big hit with "Beans and Cornbread" in 1949. And Louis Jordan's jump blues led to Chuck Berry who was the progenitor of rock and roll (Berry took Jordan guitarist Carl Hogan's riff on "Ain't That Just Like a Woman" and made it iconic in his "Johnny B. Goode"). Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five, "Beans and Cornbread": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2A3JZ1U_OM.
Hugs,
Sammy
No, not Louis Jourdan
the French-born actor who made his Hollywood premiere in Hitchcock's "The Paradine Case" as the suave valet to the murdered Colonel Paradine and Mrs. Paradine's secret lover. Jourdan made a career out of playing suave continental types. He was making a play for Angela Lansbury's character in an episode of "Murder She Wrote" into the late '80s.
Sammy
thanks for the link.
Of course I had to listen to Caledonia, too.
Caledonia
My great-grandmother was named Caledonia. :) Which is probably why I have such a hard head. :D
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Louis Jordan
One of my favorite performers! Jordan was a pioneer that gets less credit than he deserves. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
If you dress as Janice Joplin for Halloween
Definitely sing that!
Janis
She could have done it! :)
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Why do I picture the instrumentals
to be a banjoy and a ukelele? Lovely.
Instruments
First verse is a banjo, second the ukulele, third is banjo, uke and guitar, instrumental is guitar and piano, last verse piano and banjo. :)
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.
Nice segue
I enjoyed this verse, good and simple, the way I like it. Of course I too related it to Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five's "Beans and Cornbread" which I had just heard on "Blues Before Sunrise" so it was fresh in mind. Fun thread here.
>>> Kay
Jordan's tune
His B&C is a fighting song, very fast with a lot of jump to the blues. :) It's intense.
Hugs,
Erin
= Give everyone the benefit of the doubt because certainty is a fragile thing that can be shattered by one overlooked fact.