Technology in the Blues
A key aspect of the blues is its use of repetition. Raymond R. Patterson wrote “Computer Blues” about the troubles and sorrows of a person and how difficult it is to handle. The use of repetition and the change in some words emphasizes the narrator’s frustrating tone.
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It is evident through the language that the narrator is having a lot of troubles and decides to rant to the computer; “I put my troubles in the computer/To find out what’s troubling me” (Patterson 197). In these two lines, there is a clear issue, and the narrator is trying to find out what the problem is by putting it in the computer. In comparison to the next two lines, “I say I put my troubles in the computer/To see what’s the matter with me” (Patterson 197). The tone of frustration is very adamant in these lines comparatively to the first two. The addition of “I say” adds a quality of emphasis that he puts his concerns in the computer, but he is frustrated because he did not get the response he wanted which is noted later on in the poem by his computer crashing. Also, in the first two lines, the narrator says he wants to find out what it is that is bothering him. He is focused on finding out the issue. However, in the second two lines he asks “what’s the matter with me.” Rather than finding out what is bothering him, he thinks that there is something wrong with him. There is a deep personal issue that is not directly introduced, but through the use of repetition it is clear that the narrator is struggling with something personally within himself and is frustrated because he no longer wants to feel that way. He is uncomfortable in the sense that there seems to be a problem that he has no answer to, not even the all-knowing computer does. It poses an ironic thought that even though computers are said to have all the answers, there are certain issues within humans themselves that no one has the answer to.
Patterson, R. Raymond “Computer Blues.” An Exaltation of Forms: Contemporary Poets Celebrate the Diversity of Their Art. Edited by Annie Finch and Katherine Varnes, U. of Michigan P, 2002, pp. 197.
