cry the blues

present singular third person cries the blues · participle present crying the blues · participle past cried the blues · past cried the blues

1. entertainmentTo sing in the style of blues music.

   "Young people have forgotten how to cry the blues," said Big Bill Broonzy as he lay dying in a dark room above the littered streets of Chicago's Negro South Side.

   1958 September 1, “Best of the Blues”, in Time

2. broadlyidiomaticTo complain, especially in order to obtain sympathy for one's own purportedly sad situation.

   We have immense corporations that cry the blues all day long about how their pension costs are ruining them.

   2006 July 9, Ben Stein, “Everybody's Business”, in New York Times, retrieved 20 Nov 2008

   1 more example

   "The average citizen gets an extreme emotional delight in ‘crying the blues’ to anyone who might lend an attentive ear."

   1934 October 3, “Slang Declared Barometer Of Nation's State Of Mind”, in Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, retrieved 20 Nov 2008, page 15