Langston Hughes

Homesick Blues

De railroad bridge’s

Blues form

Classic 12-bar blues structure: first line states the problem, second line repeats it, third line responds or resolves. Hughes is writing actual song lyrics, not just poetry about blues.

A sad song in de air.
De railroad bridge’s
A sad song in de air.

Blues form

Classic 12-bar blues structure: first line states the problem, second line repeats it, third line responds or resolves. Hughes is writing actual song lyrics, not just poetry about blues.

Ever time de trains pass
I wants to go somewhere.
I went down to de station.
Ma heart was in ma mouth.
Went down to de station.
Heart was in ma mouth.
Lookin’ for a box car

Box car migration

Hoboing in freight cars was how poor Black southerners traveled during the Great Migration (1916-1970). He's looking for illegal transport because he can't afford a ticket.

To roll me to de South.
Homesick blues, Lawd,
’S a terrible thing to have.
Homesick blues is
A terrible thing to have.
To keep from cryin’
I opens ma mouth an’ laughs.
Source Wikipedia Poetry Foundation

Reading Notes

Blues as Structure, Not Just Subject

Hughes isn't writing about the blues—he's writing in blues form. Each stanza follows the AAB pattern of 12-bar blues: state a line, repeat it with slight variation, then deliver a response or punchline. The repetition isn't poetic decoration; it's how blues songs actually work, giving the singer time to feel the emotion and the band time to respond.

The poem was published in 1926 in *The Weary Blues*, Hughes's first collection, which pioneered using jazz and blues structures in written poetry. White modernists like Eliot were fracturing syntax and using obscure allusions; Hughes was transcribing the experimental forms already present in Black music. The repetition that looks simple on the page would have instrumental breaks and vocal improvisation in performance.

Notice the refrain structure: the first and fourth stanzas are identical, as are the second and fifth, third and sixth. This creates a circular, trapped feeling—the song keeps returning to the same place, just like the speaker stuck at the train station. The form enacts the content.

The Great Migration in Reverse

Between 1916 and 1970, six million Black Americans moved from the rural South to northern and western cities, fleeing Jim Crow violence and seeking industrial jobs. This was the Great Migration, and it reshaped American culture. Blues music traveled north with the migrants; so did Hughes, who was born in Missouri but lived in New York during the Harlem Renaissance.

This poem captures a less-discussed reality: reverse migration, the homesickness that made some people want to return. The North offered wages and less overt terrorism, but also racism, poverty, and cultural dislocation. The speaker is in an industrial northern city (implied by the railroad bridge's constant traffic) but wants to go back to the South. The box car detail is crucial—he's broke, looking for the same illegal freight-hopping transport that brought migrants north.

The final image—"To keep from cryin' / I opens ma mouth an' laughs"—is the blues philosophy in two lines. You laugh to keep from crying; you sing to survive what you can't change. The homesickness is "terrible," but the song itself is the coping mechanism, turning pain into music that others can use.