On Meter and the Social Dynamics of Cueing in Bill Monroe’s “Muleskinner Blues”

Abstract

“Muleskinner Blues,” the signature song of bluegrass patriarch Bill Monroe, is at once central to the bluegrass canon and yet metrically enigmatic, featuring a flexible timing structure that fluctuated wildly between performances. This article engages in a longitudinal study of 165 performances of “Muleskinner Blues” across Bill Monroe’s career to explore how the musicians that rotated through his band, the Blue Grass Boys, cognitively grappled with the song’s flexible structure. Through a series of analytical vignettes, I will detail the distributed cognitive system that drives performances of “Muleskinner Blues,” giving special attention to musical cues as tools for calling collective attention to structurally important moments of action. Additionally, I show how the song’s flexible meter was weaponized by Monroe in acts of musical hazing, antagonizing his musicians in the high-stakes environment of a live performance. Through these analyses, I show how the song’s peculiar meter centered Monroe musically, structurally, and socially, transforming “Muleskinner Blues” into a potent vehicle for the masculine ideology of the father of bluegrass music.