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.
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.