Try another city babe, another town/
Wherever I have gone the blues keep following down.

“Blues Run the Game” is a song about life on the road being a musician. We’ll encounter several songs with that theme in this list. This is the most bleak. Compare this song with “Breakfast in America” by Supertramp, or Dan Fogelburg’s comments on being on the road in “Leader of the Band”.

Frank was not nearly as financially successful as either Supertramp or Fogelburg, so perhaps that colored his perception of the road. This song doesn’t just seem to be about the road though, Jackson Frank seems depressed, or as he calls it he ‘has the blues’. That is such a cooler way to describe depression.

He talks of crying, drinking, living his life in sin while missing his woman at home. And he doesn’t anticipate the next town will change his habits or mood all that much—it’ll bring more of the same.

“Blues Run the Game” contains all the elements of a great blues song lyrically but also musically: including Franke’s clear deep voice, solid finger-picking acoustic guitar–(an improvised style), a feeling of melancholy and lack of chorus.

Frank died in obscurity. He never really was a road musician for more than a couple years. He was in and out of mental hospitals his adult life and was homeless for some time. He was shot and blinded while homeless. The only surviving video of him performing is a 13 second clip.

There is a beautiful cover version of “Blues Run the Game” by the band Headless Heroes that is a bit more accessible for those who aren’t pure folk fans:

Blues Run The Game Lyrics

Catch a boat to England baby,
Maybe to Spain;
Wherever I have gone, wherever I’ve been and gone,
Wherever I have gone, the blues are all the same.

Send out for whisky baby, send out for gin,
Me and room service, honey,
Me and room service, babe,
Me are room service, well we’re livin’ a life of sin.

When I’m not drinking baby, you are on my mind.
When I’m not sleeping, babe,
When I ain’t sleepin’ mama,
When I’m not sleepin’,
Well you know you find me cryin’.

Find another city baby, another town,
Wherever I have gone, wherever I have gone,
The blues come followin down.

Livin’ is a gamble, baby,
Lovings much the same.
Wherever I have played,
Whenever I throw them dice,
Wherever I have played,
The blues have the run the game.

Maybe tomorrow honey, someplace down the line,
I’ll wake up older,
So much older, mama!
I’ll wake up older and I’ll just, I’ll stop all my tryin’.

Catch a boat to England baby,
Maybe to Spain.
Wherever I have gone, wherever I’ve been and gone,
Wherever I have gone, the blues are all the same.

written by Jackson C Frank