And all that jazz...

  

Emotions in English are strongly related to colors: green with envy, red with rage, white with anger, red or pink with embarrassment, rosy or peachy to indicate good fortune or optimism, yellow-belly which means coward in American English... And this post's protagonist: blue.

To have the blues, or to feel blue, means to be in a state of depression or melancholy. Blues music has at its heart this idea of melancholy mixed with anger against slavery and humiliation, as it is associated with the blue color of the indigo plant, grown in many southern US slave plantations.

I'd like to present here one of my favorite jazzmen, Chet baker, who really had the blues deeply entrenched in his singing: The song that I post for you today is called Born to be Blue. Check out the lyrics below before or after you listen to it, and notice how he plays around with the colors that surround us in nature, then complete the missing words please!

Born to Be Blue_Words and Glossary

PS: I'd like to thank Jose Luis for sparking the flame of jazz in class!