The German word for the color “blue” is blau. In my German class today we learned a bunch of expressions that involve the color blue.

Now, as in English, you can turn “blue” from cold — in German the expression is blau gefroren, literally “to be frozen blue”.

But unlike in English, the German expression that literally means “to be blue”,  blau sein, does NOT mean to be sad. Rather, blau sein in Germans means “to be drunk”.

The German expression einen blauen Tag machen, literally “make a blue day”,  means you’re playing hookey when you should be going to work.  It’s similar in concept to the expression “Blue Flu” that I remember hearing as a kid. As I remember it, when the police somewhere wanted to go on strike, but couldn’t legally strike, they all called in sick on the same day. It was referred to as the “Blue Flu.” I assumed at the time came from the fact that “blue” was shorthand for the men in the blue uniforms, i.e. the police. I’ve never heard it used more generally than that, though.

But the expression in German historically … or at least according to legend … is actually tied to a real story about workers loafing when they were supposed to be working. Once upon a time (so the story goes) a worker at a shop that made blue cloth was supposed to take a jug of some kind of alcohol and pour it into the vat where color was being mixed, in order to dissolve indigo to make blue cloth. However, the worker knew that in fact you could also use an alternative ingredient – urine – to dissolve the indigo if you didn’t have alcohol available.

So, one day the worker though to himself, I don’t feel like working today to make the blue fabric. I’d really rather drink this jug of alcohol  than pour it into the indigo vat. So, that’s what he did. And later, when nature called, he was able to dissolve the Indigo in the vat anyway, and no one was the wiser.  And so, if someone ever saw him sitting around,  drinking the wine, and not working, he just defended himself by saying, well, I am working, it’s just a “blue day” — and this is what I need to do to dissolve the Inidigo.

Actually, our teacher said the expression was really to take a “Blue Monday”, not just to take a “blue day”, as originally Monday was the day on which the Indigo fabric was dyed. However, the expression in modern German doesn’t use a particular day anymore.

Hmm. Now, I have heard that the Ancient Romans did really make use of raw liquid materials gathered at public toilets in order to make blue dye. So, it is true that you can dissolve indigo that way. Whether or not this story about the fabric worker on a Monday in the Middle Ages is really the origin of the German expression “blue day” or, or just an interesting folk etymology is debated. There is something in the German Wikipedia that indicates that in medieval times there was the notion that Mondays was the “day of rest” for the blue dye to have its oxidation fixed, so that no work could be done with the fabric on Mondays. But according to what Chris found in the German Wikipedia, that’s apparently just speculation about the origin of the “Blue Monday” or “Blue Day” expression. And the other version of the tale makes a far more colorful story — pun not actually intended.

My original internet search had turned up one  odd, marginally related item:

Blue Monday is a name given to a date in mid-to-late January stated, as part of a publicity campaign by Sky Travel, to be the most depressing day of the year. However, the whole concept is considered pseudoscience, with its formula derided by scientists as nonsense.
You can read the full entry here

I don’t think the Sky Travel people knew the supposed history of the “blue day” in German when they came up with that campaign, though.

Anyway, where does all that leave us? Well, today is not Blue Monday – if you believe in it, the happened on January 21, which was the last Monday of the last full week in January 2013. I’m also not taking today as a blau Tag for me in the German sense.  Although, can you even play hookey from work if you mostly unemployed? 😉

In any case, I’m neither “blue”  (blau) in the German sense nor “blue” in the American sense today, either.

But it turns out that, despite the different uses of “blue”/blau in English vs German, there is the American style of music that is always called the “Blues”, no matter the language. So, just for fun, I’ve compiled a short playlist below of some songs that popped into my head on the walk home from class, all with “Blues” in their title.

BTW, if you listen to no other song on the list, please do check out the first one. You’ll  see a good example of how you can be blau, but not blue, while singing the Blues. 😉

1. Birth of the Blues – performance by the “Rat Pack” in 1965
2. Birth of the Blues – very last song in the clip – starts around 3:24. Performed by Sammy Davis, Jr. in 1989. Note the subtitles are in Japanese; in 1989, I was living in Tokyo, and I actually watched a televised version of this concert on Japanese TV – on a television set I found in the trash near my building. Ah, memories. 😉
3. Birth of the Blues – performed by Sammy Davis, Jr. alone
4. I’d Rather Be Blue Over You – performed  by Fanny Brice
5. I’d Rather Be Blue over you – performed by Barbara Streisand in this clip from the movie Funny Girl; if a 30-second ad for Turner Movie Classics starts playing, click  under the clip listing at right where it says “Play Now” to skip the ad. If that clip doesn’t work, then try this clip with Spanish subtitles. The song begins at 2:45.
6. Blues Medley  – Ella Fitzgerald and Dinah Shore – what I find interesting is that the music is upbeat, even though they are technically “singing the blues”. In this other Blues in the Night clip, there’s a snippet of them an old TV special, plus the last time they performed it together (in 1980s? maybe) at the Grammy Awards
7. I guess that’s why they call it the blues – performed by Elton John
8. San Francisco Bay Blues – Eric Clapton (song starts after band introductions around 1:11)