Hughes’ performance of “Weary Blues” emphasizes the emotions that he writes about in the poem. The poem is clearly supposed to be slow and sad (or blue, if you will). Hughes uses words like “droning” and “drowsy” in the first  line to make it clear that this is not an upbeat poem. When he reads it out loud, he actually performs those words by dragging them out and emphasizing them. The alliteration also adds to the lazy feel because repetition is often associated with boredom. He uses the same dragging voice during the repeated lines “He did a lazy sway” (4-5). We can also view this as another example of repetition being associated with boredom. Repetition comes up a few more times in the poem, with the words “Thump, thump, thump” (23) and the lines “I got the Weary Blues / And I can’t be satisfied” (25-26). He also moans the word “moan” (18), which is fitting.

There is a contrast in tone during the last few lines of the poem. From “And far into the night he crooned that tune” (31) to “While the Weary Blues echoed through his head” (34), he sounds a bit livelier, and then in the last line he becomes more solemn when he states that “He slept like a rock or a man that’s dead” (35). This could be to stress the sadness of the line. There are so many changes Hughes makes to his voice during the poem that make it come alive. While the performance does not necessarily change my interpretation of the poem, it definitely adds to the emotion and the idea that art can be a release from sadness, since the subject of the poem is playing piano to channel his anguish about feeling all alone in the world.