"The Bourgeois Blues" is a blues song by American folk and blues musician Lead Belly. It was written in June 1937 in response to the discrimination and segregation that he faced during a visit to Washington, D.C. to record for Alan Lomax. It rails against racism, the Jim Crow laws, and the conditions of contemporary African Americans in the southern United States. The song was recorded in December 1938 for the Library of Congress and re-recorded in 1939 for commercial release.
"The Bourgeois Blues" is regarded as one of Lead Belly's best original works, but it also drew controversy. There is doubt over the song's authorship, with some scholars contending that Lead Belly was unlikely to have written a work in a genre new to him without a collaborator. Questions have been raised over his role in the American Communist Party and whether he and the song were used to further the party's political goals.