A good song is often inspired by some painful experience.
A good song is often inspired by some painful experience, like a breakup or a death, or even a catastrophic natural event like a flood. So, after hundreds of thousands of people lost everything in the Great Mississippi Flood of 1927, the blues duo of Kansas Joe McCoy and Memphis Minnie were well-equipped to use their firsthand observations of the calamity to write and record “When the Levee Breaks.” Read more about our lyric of the week.











