Ma Rainey’s Black Eye Blues does more than tell a story, it projects womanly strength and emotion.  It not only projects strength and emotion through its lyrics, but also the notes that the lyrics are sang in.  Black Eye Blues is a story told from the third person. Ma Rainey witnesses a Miss Nancy Ann, who argues with her lover frequently, get beaten.  Miss Nancy Ann retaliates and says, “just watch me sooner or later, 
Gonna catch you with your britches down”, implying her eventual revenge.  The lyrics then explain that Nancy Ann’s lover steals from her, cheats on her, and lies about everything. The lyrics then go back to the line where she states her plot of revenge. 

            While listening to “Black Eye Blues” one can hear the power of the lyrics projected by Ma Rainey.  According to Angela Davis’s Mama’s Got the Blues, early women’s blues singers displayed their emotions and sexuality through their music, as one of the few ways a black woman, or any woman for that matter, could express their emotions during the 1920’s and 1930’s.  Angela Davis states that, “Ma Rainey, presents a powerful, fighting, rough-and-tumble woman, who boasts about her assertiveness and power”(47).  In “Black Eye Blues”, the previous statement can be proven through the line, “just watch me sooner or later, 
Gonna catch you with your britches down”.  Ma Rainey, though she sang this line, did not actually “say” it.  But even though they weren’t “her” exact words, through her voice they become hers and we can feel it in our hearts, the true intent of those select words, that she really will catch her man with his britches down.  Further in Angela Davis’s paper, she mentions a song called “Wringing and Twisting Blues”.  Where in the lyrics, Ma Rainey says she wants to poison the woman who caused her lover to leave her (47).  As one can see, Ma Rainey is not afraid to show her listener or audience what she is feeling and thinking.  She really shows how assertive and powerful she is.

            The song itself does have a tragic and yet aggressive tone to it, but the lyrics are not the only thing that makes this song full of emotion. The lyrics of this sound are assisted by the notes to really tell the story.  Throughout the song, notes are high and low on certain words to stress the meaning of that specific word.  For example the line, “Why do you treat your gal that way?”, “way” ends in a low note, indicating sorrow that Miss Nancy Ann has because of her treatment by her lover.  The next line, “Nancy and her man just has a fight”, “fight” ends in a high note, suggesting the intensity of the quarrel.   This high note, low note additions to the lyrics continue throughout the rest of the song.  When Ma Rainey sings, “You ‘buse me and mistreat, you dog around and beat me”, it also goes up to show how badly her lover does these things.  The final thing that I would like to mention is the final “I mean it”.  The last time those words are mentioned, they are higher than before, really indicating that she will have revenge after all the things her man has done to her. After really listening to the whole song, and then its parts, one can really hear that it’s not just the lyrics that create the emotion of the song; it is also the notes it is sang or played in.

            In all, there is more to a song than just its lyrics.  The singer’s voice and notes that the song is played/sang in make the song more dramatic and emotional. Lastly, Ma Rainey, as described by Angela Davis, has really shown her authority, through her music and her voice, leaving no emotion to spare.