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Dear Cecil:
What is a mojo? Do women have them? And what does it mean to
have your mojo workin', risin', etc? --Rich R., Madison,
Wisconsin
Dear Rich:
It's not what you think, wise guy.
According to my Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary--not,
perhaps, the ideal source for a word popularized by semiliterate
blues musicians, but bear with me--mojo has two meanings: (1) a
narcotic, especially morphine; or (2) "magic, the art of casting
spells, [or] a charm or amulet used in such spells."
In the first
sense mojo may derive from the Spanish mojar, to
celebrate by drinking; in the second, from an African word, perhaps
Gullah, moco, meaning witchcraft or magic.
In blues
songs mojo almost always refers to #2.
For example, there's "Mojo
Blues," recorded by Charley Lincoln in 1927: "Oh the mojo
blues mama, crawling across the floor / Some hard-luck rascal done
told me I ain't here no more / ... Aw she went to a hoodoo,
she went there all alone / Because every time I leave her, I have
to hurry back home."
Imponderable though portions of this are,
it seems clear that the woman is using a mojo to bring her man
back.
Similarly we have "Low Down Mojo Blues," recorded by Blind
Lemon Jefferson in 1928:
"My rider's got a mojo, and she won't
let me see / Every time I start to loving, she ease that thing on
me / She's got to fool her daddy, she's got to keep that mojo hid
/ But papa's got something, for to find that mojo with / She got
four speeds forward, and she don't never stall / The way she bumps
over the hill, it would make a panther squall."
The problem with these damn blues tunes is that just about when you
figure you've got something pretty much nailed down, meaningwise,
they launch into some off-the-wall digression (e.g., "four speeds
forward") that tends to cast doubt on any strictly linear
interpretation. But you get the basic idea.
You also see how
you might get the impression a mojo has something to do with sex,
mainly because nine times out of ten it does have
something to do with sex, in the form of a love charm or
aphrodisiac or something.
"Scarey Day Blues" by Blind Willie McTell
makes this pretty clear:
"My good gal got a mojo, she's
trying to keep it hid / But Georgia Bill got something to find that
mojo with [I know this is repetitive, but it gets better]
/ I said she got that mojo, and she won't let me see / And
every time I start to love her, she's tried to put them jinx on me.
"Well she shakes it like the Central, she wobbles like the L and
N [railroads] / Well she's a hotshot mama, and I'm
scared to tell her where I been / Said my baby got something, she
won't tell her daddy what it is / But when I crawls into my bed, I
just can't keep my black stuff still."
I imagine the expression
"black stuff" requires no explanation.
NOTES FROM THE MOJO BEAT
Dear Cecil:
Cecil, please, watch your
stereotypes--"semiliterate blues musicians" indeed!
One of the
musicians you quoted, Blind Willie McTell, studied at schools for
the blind in Mississippi, New York, and Michigan. Although he
sang on the streets for years he was far from a beggar, traveling
extensively throughout the south and performing many styles of folk
and pop, as well as blues, in a wide variety of venues.
Two of our
other best-known "mojo" lyricists--Willie Dixon and J.B.
Lenoir--are famous for their insightful, articulate musical
observations on politics, social issues, and a wide variety of
other topics.
Each, moreover, was much more than a "mere" musician. Dixon was A&R
man for Chess Records for many years, and Lenoir made
a profitable living for himself in the funeral home business after
he retired from music.
The list of blues musicians who've enjoyed
success in other endeavors--politics, business, other performing
arts, the church--requiring both literacy and resourcefulness
would be much too long for this letter.
As far as mojo goes,
I might be able to contribute two bits of information.
The "mojo
hand" often referred to is a variation of a generic kind of magical
"hand" used by root doctors and hoodoo doctors in rural folk
medicine and magical practices.
On one memorable television
broadcast, Dr. John presented Muddy Waters with one, complete with
either the bones or the dried fingers of monkeys hanging from it.
From what I can gather, "mojo" in this case is an adjective, like
the word "magic" in "magic potion."
The "mojo rising" the
questioner mentioned, however, is the invention of one Jim Morrison
of the famous Delta blues band the Doors.
Morrison took to nicknaming
himself "Mr. Mojo Risin'" as an anagram of "Jim Morrison" toward
the end of his life. He finally included the phrase in the
song, "LA Woman," although what southern folk medicine has to do
with Los Angeles is a secret Morrison carried to his grave (we
think). --David W., Chicago
--CECIL ADAMS
The Straight Dope / Questions or
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