Meaning of cry the blues | Babel Free

Definitions

1. To sing in the style of blues music.
2. To complain, especially in order to obtain sympathy for one's own purportedly sad situation.
   broadly, idiomatic

Examples

“"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.”

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

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

CEFR level