Long before I learned
How to tie my shoes,
I learned that New Orleans
Was the home of the blues.

Not long ago one morning
The sun in the city,
The blues went rollin' and tumbin' ya'll
Up the Mississippi,

Up through the delta
Up to memphis tennessee
Where every people [bad word] ya'll [bad word] to be free.

The blues is the music
That fanned the flame
That burned in the soul of
Little Walter and Elmore James.

The Blues is the music, yeah,
That anyone can feel, [bad word] from the crowds of the people
That worked at cotton fields.

The blues threw out of pain,
But now it can heal,
And the more I sing it, yeah,
The better I feel.

And nobody can give it away,
Nobody can take it away, no, no,
Nobody can throw it away,
And you can't even pray it away.

And blues is a feeling,
That will never die,
And blues is a feeling to stay, yaw.

What would this world be, yaw,
Without B.B. King?
Without Bobby "Blue" Bland,
Doing his things?

Without T. Bone Walker
And Howlin' Wolf?
Without Bessy and Big Mama [bad word]  their stuff?

There'd be no Elvis,
No Jerry Lee,
And Young Eric Clapton, yaw,
Would have never crossed the sea.

Without old Lightnin', Jimmy Reed
Muddy Waters to grow up on
Hey the Beatles and the Stones
They'd of never left home, no no.

Well, well, well

The blues is the gospel
Of [bad word] man,
The story of a people
In a hostile land.

Built on a foundation
That'll never fall
thanks to Robert Cray, 
Stevie Ray,and Taj Majal,

And nobody can give it away,
Nobody can take it away, no, no,
Nobody can throw it away,
And you can't even pray it away.

And blues is a feeling,
That will never die,
And blues is a feeling to stay, yaw.