On Stoicism

The tune is just three chords, the I, IV7, V7 progression common in Gospel and a lot of New Orleans music, suited to both exultation in the pews and good-natured debauchery. According to Mac (Dr. John) Rebennack, one of the many artists who covered it, the song’s shuffling rhythm was known as “the jailbird beat,” maybe because in many prisons convicts were chained together, which forced them to walk (loosely) in step as they were marched off to work in the fields. This was a common practice at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, a prison so shitty that in the 1930s, one out of every ten men confined there could expect to be stabbed in any given year. And, indeed, Angola is name-checked in one of the song’s verses:

. . . six months ain’t no sentence
. . . one year ain’t no time
They got boys up in Angola
Serving nine to ninety-nine

While “Junco Partner (Worthless Man)” isn’t really a prison song, it is a song about the kind of man who often ends up in prison. Statistically, such a man is likely to be serving time for drugs (45.2 percent nationwide) — that is, a junkie. He is also disproportionately likely to be African American (66 percent of Louisiana’s inmates; 38.3 percent nationwide). The men who sent him to prison probably view him as worthless. He may view himself as worthless. And you can imagine that it would probably be unproductive for such a man to argue the contrary with, say, a prison guard. At a certain point, it may be better to embrace the label, to look up, meet the other in the eyes, and say, Okay, so I’m worthless, and maybe even to make an anthem of it, using that I, IV7, V7 progression and a stuttering jailbird beat. This move is an example of what’s known as stoicism. You know the Stoics: Marcus Aurelius was one, and also Epictetus, a former slave.

“Junco Partner (Worthless Man)” was first recorded in 1951 by James Waynes, also known as James Wayne. The song is