Reverend Joe Lowery's Invocation, The Blues & Big Bill Broonzy

In the closing seconds of the invocation, I and millions of others savored Joe Lowery's rap. It came across as the perfect cap, the high point of the proceedings, and Obama's bowed head and many others on the dais lifted into smiles as he prayed:

Lord, in the memory of all the saints who from their labors rest, and in the joy of a new beginning, we ask you to help us work for that day when black will not be asked to get back, when brown can stick around, when yellow will be mellow, when the red man can get ahead, man, and when white will embrace what is right.

Lowery lifted his zinger from a 1948 hit song by fellow preacher and accomplished bluesman Big Bill Broonzy's "Black, Brown and White," and enlarged upon it with inclusion:

If you're black and gotta work for a living,
This is what they will say to you,
They say, "If you was white, you's all right,
If you was brown, stick around,
But as you's black, oh brother, get back, get back, get back"

I was in a place one night
They was all having fun
They was all buyin' beer and wine,
But they would not sell me none
They said, "If you was white, you's all right,
If you was brown, stick around,
But if you black, oh brother, get back, get back, get back."

I hepped built this country
And I fought for it, too
Now I guess that you can see
What a black man has to do
They says, "If you's white, you's all right,
If you's brown, stick around,
But if you black, oh brother, get back, get back, get back."

Broonzy also popularized the riff which would later serve as a rich quarry of American rock music, "Guitar Shuffle." I hope Mr. Lowery is listening to some iteration of it tonight, and that he's come down with the smilin' blues like the happiest man in town.