All 18 Uses of

blues
in
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings

The Syrian brothers vied for her attention as she sang the heavy blues that Bailey and I almost understood.
p. 65.4 *

blues = a style of music that originated among African Americans at the beginning of the 20th century; has a melancholy sound from repeated use of blue notes

My gift from Mother was a tea set—a teapot, four cups and saucers and tiny spoons—and a doll with blue eyes and rosy cheeks and yellow hair painted on her head.†
p. 52.7

I was glad that Mother had let me wear the navy-blue winter coat with brass buttons.†
p. 84.7

A barrelhouse blues was being shouted over the stamping of feet on a wooden floor.†
p. 131.9

Looking straight up at the uneven circle of sky, I began to sense that I might be falling into a blue cloud, far away.†
p. 140.0 *

We raised our chins and looked straight at the seductive patch of blue.†
p. 141.8

The mourners on the front benches sat in a blue-serge, black-crepe-dress gloom.†
p. 160.3

It was just as fat as a butter-ball, and laughing, eyes blue, blue, blue.†
p. 164.2

It was just as fat as a butter-ball, and laughing, eyes blue, blue, blue.†
p. 164.2

It was just as fat as a butter-ball, and laughing, eyes blue, blue, blue.†
p. 164.2

On the classroom blackboard, as well as on the bulletin board in the auditorium, there were blue stars and white stars and red stars.†
p. 172.8

It may be enough, however, to have it said that we survive in exact relationship to the dedication of our poets (include preachers, musicians and blues singers).†
p. 184.9

But my head continued to throb with the measured insistence of a bass drum, and how could a toothache pass the calaboose, hear the songs of the prisoners, their blues and laughter, and not be changed?†
p. 187.4

Hence the janitor who lives in one room but sports a robin's-egg-blue Cadillac is not laughed at but admired, and the domestic who buys forty-dollar shoes is not criticized but is appreciated.†
p. 224.9

Women had replaced men on the streetcars as conductors and motormen, and the thought of sailing up and down the hills of San Francisco in a dark-blue uniform, with a money changer at my belt, caught my fancy.†
p. 264.9

I'd pictured myself, dressed in a neat blue serge suit, my money changer swinging jauntily at my waist, and a cheery smile for the passengers which would make their own work day brighter.†
p. 265.5

Mother gave me the money to have my blue serge suit tailored, and I learned to fill out work cards, operate the money changer and punch transfers.†
p. 269.9

Definitions:

(1) (blues as in: sings the blues)
a style of music that originated among African Americans at the beginning of the 20th century; has a melancholy sound from repeated use of blue notes

(blue notes are musical notes sung or played at a lower pitch than those of the major scale -- especially the flatted third, fifth and seventh)
(2) (blues as in: feeling the blues)
feelings of sadness or depression
(3) (meaning too common or rare to warrant focus)
meaning too common or too rare to warrant focus:

"Blues" more commonly describes shades of the color.