Seeing the Lyrical Light.

For many years I’ve had an album of blues classics in my car which gets played on a rota basis with the others. One of the tracks is sung by a man with that particular variety of black, Deep South accent which is very distinctive, and for quite a long time I thought I was hearing ‘Well, I’m a canned bean.’

This was always problematic for two reasons: firstly, the state of being a canned bean seemed curiously at odds with the usual themes one expects of songs in the blues tradition, and secondly, the rest of the lyrics seemed quite incompatible with a man claiming to be a canned bean. And then one fine day, clarity asserted its almighty presence. What he’s actually singing is ‘Well, I’m a king bee, buzzin’ around your hive.’

The rest of the now-evidently raunchy lyrics suddenly made sense, and it occurred to me that the average vicar, or anyone who has lived a sheltered life for that matter, might not understand the metaphorical reference to a ‘hive.’ Fortunately (if one is to make of the poetry what it truly is), I’m not a vicar and my life has been generally devoid of shelter.