“I’d Rather Go Blind” Etta James
From Tell Mama

The dark, secret truth of my life is I just don’t enjoy the blues. I really don’t “get” it. It’s not because they are too sad, for I really like sad songs. It’s not because they are full of hard times, for I’ve had my share of hard times. I believe it has something to do with the way they are sad, and the means of which they talk about the hard times.

Actually, let’s back up a minute. This is the electric blues I’m talking about. I have no such hard feeling for the acoustic blues, and tend to dig them, in fact. It’s the electric part of the electric blues that gets me. It’s too electric. Too loud. Too much. I guess it’s in the brazen electric sound that is supposed to transmit the feeling of the blues, but to me it is all too often just annoying. I don’t feel the blues. I don’t hear the blues. I just hear loud. I’ve often said I’m not a lyric listener. But it is here that I must be proven a liar. I like sad song that is soft, and full of lyrics that can break my heart. And when I hear the sad lyrics being blazened by electric forces out of my control, I tend to tune out, or change the channel.

It is then here that Etta James proves that there is something to the blues. Sweet Ashton Kutcher, this song just slays me. What a voice. When she sings, “I’d rather go blind, than watch you walk away,” you believe her. Heck, you want to cut out your own eyes so you can’t see her lover walk away either. I may not care for the blues all that much, but this song cuts me in a way no others can. Maybe it’s because I’ve had my own share of heart ache. Maybe I’ve seen my lover walk away. Maybe Etta James knows how to conjure up emotional depths the rest of us only hear about. Whatever the case, and I suspect it is a bit of both, she has captured the essence of heartache in this song, and I for one, am grateful.