when i first listened to this song, certain lines jumped out at me. Just little things about decatur that i had forgotten. Especially the reference to the alligators... i remember thinking i've heard about that before, way back in elementary school.
In response to the "I am" line comments:
Decatur doesn't strike me as being an overly religous city, even in the history of it. Maybe because many decatur residents claim that the city is haunted. Once or twice i've heard it refered to as having 'more bars than churches'. Every fall 'haunted decatur' tours are available with books written of the same name. The civil war skeletons mentioned in the song have many stories about how they got to the cemetary, and that part of greenwood cemetary is known to be extremely haunted.
About Sputnik22's speculation that the move to decatur had to do with God- i'm leafing through a short history of the area and it just seems that settlers moving west happened to settle along the Sangamon River and had no significance. The city itself is supposidly built on ancient indian burial grounds and during a harsh winter a group of settlers was rumored or have resorted to cannibolism.
I always figured that the last lines were merely rhymes. I now doubt it, though.
when i first listened to this song, certain lines jumped out at me. Just little things about decatur that i had forgotten. Especially the reference to the alligators... i remember thinking i've heard about that before, way back in elementary school.
In response to the "I am" line comments: Decatur doesn't strike me as being an overly religous city, even in the history of it. Maybe because many decatur residents claim that the city is haunted. Once or twice i've heard it refered to as having 'more bars than churches'. Every fall 'haunted decatur' tours are available with books written of the same name. The civil war skeletons mentioned in the song have many stories about how they got to the cemetary, and that part of greenwood cemetary is known to be extremely haunted.
About Sputnik22's speculation that the move to decatur had to do with God- i'm leafing through a short history of the area and it just seems that settlers moving west happened to settle along the Sangamon River and had no significance. The city itself is supposidly built on ancient indian burial grounds and during a harsh winter a group of settlers was rumored or have resorted to cannibolism.
I always figured that the last lines were merely rhymes. I now doubt it, though.