"Every Day I Have the Blues" is a twelve-bar blues composed by brothers Aaron "Pinetop" Sparks and Milton Sparks in 1935. Originally recorded by Pinetop on vocals and piano with Henry Townsend on guitar for Bluebird Records, the song features a simple, declarative melody anchored by the opening phrase "Every day, every day I have the blues." The composition follows a standard twelve-bar blues structure with conventional harmony, but its directness and memorable vocal hook gave it an unusually durable foundation for reinterpretation. Pinetop died just two weeks after the record's release at the age of twenty-five. The tune gained wider recognition through Memphis Slim's 1949 reworking, titled "Nobody Loves Me," which retained the original opening verse but rewrote much of the lyric and abandoned Pinetop's characteristic falsetto delivery. From there the song entered the mainstream blues repertoire, with four different versions reaching the Top Ten of the Billboard R&B chart. The Count Basie Orchestra's version featuring vocalist Joe Williams was inducted into the Grammy Hall of Fame in 1992, followed by B.B. King's version in 2004. King's recording received further recognition in 2019 with induction into the Blues Foundation Hall of Fame. The composition's straightforward harmonic and melodic framework has made it one of the most widely performed and adapted songs in the blues canon.
