Song Of The South

First things first: lyric correction "pappa got a job with the TVA" not TBA

This is one of the few country songs that I like. Probably just because I love American history and this song really portrays the time period beautifully.

I think this song is about how the Yankees influenced much of the south after the civil war. They are still having an influence today. The 'song of the south' used to be a happy prideful one (and full of sweet potato pie... and other good eats I imagine), even if few ever got rich.

When the northern liberal influence came down here (in part via FDR, who was born in NY), government programs such as the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) helped provide 'jobs' to people, though the value of many of those jobs was certainly questionable. The jobs resulted in a loss of the farms and the southern way of life, but ushered in Chevrolets and washing machines and other comforts of life.

But to me, the strongest part of the song is what isn't said. The 'song of the south' that was lost along the way... the grandeur, the cordiality, the timelessness that was the old south. But everyone just shuts their mouth about it ... and eats their sweet potato pie, but now, from the frozen food aisle at the grocery store.

Great song indeed!

This song so reminds me of being a kid in the 80's with good ole 80's country music. My family loves Alabama. This song was so catchy and we used to sing it all the time. Course, at the time I didn't understand the meaning of it. Now I do. Whenever I get a chance I look this one up on youtube and watch the video.

Song, song of the south Sweet potato pie and I shut my mouth Gone, gone with the wind There ain't nobody looking back again

}}Basically the song is a statement about the historical South after the War Between the States

Cotton on the roadside, cotton in the ditch We all picked the cotton but we never got rich Daddy was a veteran, a southern democrat They oughta get a rich man to vote like that

}}They were sharecroppers in the 1920s meaning they lived on land they didn't own (they leased the land from landowners), picking cotton for which they would never profit. Wages were low then and sharecropping was one of the worst occupations. His father was probably a World War I veteran and a proud patriotic American ... but believed that the country owed him something in return. Southern democrats were populists who were mostly favored by poor whites. Think of John Edwards style politics in an era where segregation was still around. Yankees, mostly Republicans at the time, were in the majority and did not support the common folk in the south. Yankees disdained poor southern whites, having basically the same opinion back then as they do today. (Metro vs. Retro, according to a liberal San Francisco columnist.)

Well somebody told us Wall Street fell But we were so poor that we couldn't tell Cotton was short and the weeds were tall But Mr. Roosevelt's a-gonna save us all

}}Now we're in the 1930s. The Great Depression had little effect on poor southerners. In fact a lot were excited at the prospect of Northerners losing financial power over the South. Roosevelt was like a messiah though. He made nearly unbelievable promises to the American people. He promised not just to make it so that the rich would recover their wealth, but also that the poor could rise in the ranks and become more affluent. He called this the New Deal.

Well momma got sick and daddy got down The county got the farm and they moved to town Pappa got a job with the TVA He bought a washing machine and then a Chevrolet

}}His father had to pay for a doctor, meaning that he skipped one too many lease payments. So they lost their rights to the land they already didn't have. They moved into the town where jobs were available.

The 1940s was the era in American history when we came the closest to Socialism. The TVA was one of the largest public works projects of the time, employing hundreds of thousands of men for the construction of dams, bridges, roads, and power plants. It still exists today even. (What we also have today is the still-building $9 trillion national debt!) However, it jump-started the economy, and a lot of Americans became more affluent - hence the washing machine and the Chevrolet part. They sacrificed a lot for the war effort though - including the rationing of food and gas.

So here we are in the 1940s, and the New South is emerging. New Deal "socialism" benefited the South more than any other region of the country. Roosevelt has united the South and the North in a way Presidents Lincoln and Johnson never could with their fascist military dictatorships.

The singer isn't talking about the end of the Old South in a completely negative way. He's proud of his family being from the Old South, but he acknowledges that the New South is probably a better time and place to live (notice the pleasant tone when he sings "he bought a washin' machine / and then a Chevrolet").

Amazing song, probably the one I like most from Alabama.

The song gets its title from a popular movie produced by Disney in 1946 based on the Uncle Remus stories told by a freed slave on a plantation in the Reconstruction era. (The movie contains some racist tropes, which is why Disney pulled it from its collection online, but most white people weren't bothered by that in the 1980s when this song was written.) The importance of the movie is only that it dates the song to the Depression and WWII era.

The songwriter's father is a World War I veteran. Southern Democrats aka Dixiecrats are characterized as racists today for supporting the Jim Crow laws, but most of their supporters voted for them because they had to, for their economic policies favoring poor farmers. The songwriter is basically characterizing his father as salt-of-the-earth.

Southerners characterized economic times with agricultural metaphors as during this time most of the South was rural. High cotton meant a boom time, short cotton meant a recession. Weeds being tall meant a lot of people were begging for very few jobs and trying to get handouts. This was the middle of the Depression.

Many Southerners can trace their family line back to sharecroppers who leased land and gave the landlords a cut of the profits. (My great grandparents were all sharecroppers.) Hence "we all picked the cotton, but we never got rich". The songwriter's father lost the family farm because he had to care for his wife who was sick. The county got it and auctioned it off to someone else.

Roosevelt was seen as an economic savior. He created the various New Deal agencies including the socialized utility project TVA which electrified Appalachia and put millions of Americans to work. TVA still supplies millions of rural Tenesseeans and Alabamians with power. The songwriter's dad got hired by the TVA and afterward they got to buy the conveniences of modern life.

It's a historical song, basically the "American Pie" of country music. It portrays the changes that created the New South in a positive light. The line about buying a Chevrolet and a washing machine ends with a musical flourish. There's nothing negative about Northerners in this, at all. The reference to Gone With The Wind is just another movie to date the song to the Depression and War era.

After all, "ain't nobody lookin' back again". Nobody, even in the very rural South, wants to go back to a time before washing machines, when our economic destiny depended on cotton prices (and Jim Crow, Dixiecrats' racism). The "Dixie" melody is probably the song most associated with the South and its problematic history, hence its incorporation in the song. Today at best that would be considered tone deaf, but there was no ill or racist intent originally.

This is one of Alabama's greatest songs. They sing it so well and it has such a great moral.

im pretty sure this song is about the great depression. i like the part about FDR. to bad he had to die.

I think its about the struggle of the south during the great depression.

Take it easy on Diego, bro. Freedom Lover, great analysis; it evokes both the change in the southern way of life and a time that's now virtually lost. Clever historical references in spare wording. Great banjo licks here and there.

This song still has things to say. My favorite line is "Somebody told us Wall St. fell, but we were so poor that we couldn't tell" Rural people are still poor. When we here on the radio that one company takes over another it makes zero difference in our everyday lives. We are headed for another Great Depression. Bankers and stockbrokers may jump out windows again. But country people will hunt fish and forage, like we always have done.