The Graveyard Blues

The Graveyard Blues symbolizes Charlie Shaw’s everlasting grudge against the oppression that white Americans continue to exercise against black Americans. Chaw wrote the Graveyard Blues based on his experience of being forced to provide free physical labor for the Wallace family after being unjustly arrested in Jackson, Mississippi. The song haunts the narrative just as Shaw’s spirit haunts those even indirectly connected with his suffering and with cultural appropriation.

The Laughing Song

The Laughing Song symbolizes the contempt and indifference of white Americans in the face of African-American suffering and oppression. The Laughing Song is supposedly the B-side to the Graveyard Blues record, and Shaw describes the song as being comprised solely of a long, terrifying laugh. Shaw describes this laugh as the laugh of white Americans in the face of his suffering.

Forced Labor

Forced labor symbolizes the extension of systems...