Barrelhouse Words: A Blues Dialect Dictionary

P

178 pain “To surmount (a difficulty or obstacle);to recover from (a blow,disaster,etc.)” (OED at overcome, v.4). In the above and the black spiritual “I’ll Overcome Someday” (published in 1901 and credited to C. A. Tindley), overcome is used without taking an object, as also occurs in the famous civil rights anthem of 1940s vintage,“We Shall Overcome.” P pain (v.) My heart did pain when my baby got on the train My heart struck sorrow, it felt like drops of rain. —Ruth Day,“Painful Blues,” 1931 To suffer emotional or physical pain; regarded as archaic and rare by the OED. paling I’m gonna jerk me a paling, from-a your back fence I’m gonna start whuppin’, learn the good girl some sense. —Joe Calicott,“Traveling Mama Blues,” 1930 A stake driven into the ground and used to build a fence (OED). pallet Make me down, a pallet on your floor Make it calm an’ easy, make it down by your door. —Blind Lemon Jefferson,“Stocking Feet Blues,” 1926 A Southern term for improvised bedding,consisting of clothes or rags spread on a floor (OED). Palmer’s Skin Success Now if you want your woman to look like she’s redish You buy high brown powder, Palmer’s Skin Success. —Ishman Bracey,“Saturday Blues,” 1928 The trade name of a still-popular skin bleach originally manufactured by the Morgan Drug Company of Brooklyn, New York, offering blacks of the blues era the prospect of becoming “one shade lighter” by applying a thirty-five or seventy-five cent ointment to the face at night, and washing it away the following morning with a thirty-five cent soap product. passway 179 papa I take a long look, right smack down in your mind An’ I see poor papa, come a-hobblin’ down the line. —Bertha Lee,“Mind Reader Blues,” 1934 A feminine and predominately black term for a male lover or husband,dating to the late 19th century (cf. OED). partner I’m gonna shake hands with my partner, ask him how come he’s here “I had a ruckus with my family, they gonna send me to the ’lectric chair.” —Blind Lemon Jefferson,“Electric Chair Blues,” 1928 Cell mate. In other blues recordings, partner simply means associate, male or female. partnership man Now there’s one thing daddy, that I can’t understand If you are lovin’ me, I don’t want no partnership man. —Pearl Dickson,“Twelve Pound Daddy,” 1927 Black slang for a man who is shared by two females (Hill). pass (n.) My enemies have betrayed me, have overtaken poor Bob at last And there’s one thing certain: they have stones all in my pass. —Robert Johnson,“Stones In My Passway,” 1937 Literally,“a way through or across an area where passage is limited by natural impediments, such as trees, marshes, or hills”(OED). The above couplet is a complaint that various rivals have prevented the performer from having sexual success with a coveted female. See stones in my passway. pass (v.) If you don’t quit bettin’ boys, them dice won’t pass It’s gon’ send you home on your yas-yas-yas. —Sleepy John Estes,“Someday Baby Blues,” 1935 Win; obsolete standard English used in connection with the dice game of Passage (OED), and evidently applied by blacks to craps. passway . . . You laid the passway for me, now what are you tryin’ to do? I’m cryin’:“Please, please let us be friends.” And when you hear me howlin’ in my passway rider Please open your door an’ let me in. —Robert Johnson,“Stones In My Passway,” 1937 In the above instance, a double entendre in which passway is a figurative route to pussy. In standard English,a passway is“a means of passing;a course, road, or route through” (OED). 180 pay no mind pay no mind What’s the need-a me hollerin’, what’s the need-a me cryin’? Woman I love, she don’t pay me no mind. —Furry Lewis,“I Will Turn Your Money Green,” 1928 To pay no attention to; a Southern colloquialism (cf. DARE 3 at mind, B2). peaches Have you ever seen peaches, grow on a sweet potato vine? Just step in my back yard, and take a look at mine. —Trixie Smith,“Sorrowful Blues,” 1924 Breasts, a term that (in the above instance) predates most recording double...