the South in song

I was recently challenged to compile an "ultimate songs of the South" playlist. And...unsurprisingly I went kinda crazy. This is the rough list. At some point yesterday I had to STOP working on it because there are real deadlines floating above my head.

Here goes--a few are even annotated.

Bessie Smith, “Backwater Blues” (1927)—Flood story, makes you cry unless you...um, have absolutely no heart or aren't southern...enough said.

The Carter Family, “My Clinch Mountain Home” (1929)—Historiography has taken away the romantic myth of the Carter family as untouched wild things, but every time I hear this song, I can visualize Ralph Peer sitting dumbfounded in the Bristol studio as the family let it all out.

Billie Holiday, “Strange Fruit” (1939)/
Nina Simone, “Strange Fruit” (1965)—Two versions of the most lyrically bold (and hauntingly beautiful) song about racial injustice in the American South.

Hank Williams, “The Log Train” (1952)—This was Williams’ only truly autobiographical song, a dirge-like tribute to his father’s days running lumber on Alabama’s rail lines. There must be a dozen different stories about his relationship to his father. I read one claim that he wrote this song on a visit back to Alabama in early 1952, perhaps because he was so moved by the memories; that story matches up with the date on the original demo, but who knows if he’d sat on the song for years or not. It wasn’t officially released until 1982, but the song has become a bit of a cult classic among Williams’ devout fans. I love it because it’s his voice at its rawest but perhaps also at its calmest. In just a few lines, it’s the story of a family living day by day.

Ray Charles, “Georgia on my Mind” (1960)—I like Willie Nelson’s 1978 version as well, but this is the classic.

Sam Cooke, “A Change is Gonna Come” (1964)—That the song was released posthumously makes it even more powerful.

Bob Dylan, “Stuck in Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again” (1966)—The way Dylan’s voice lifts up on the word “again” in the chorus makes me so happy; I can’t even explain why.

The Band, “The Night they Drove Old Dixie Down” (1969)—“He was just eighteen, proud and brave, but a Yankee laid him in his grave.”

Dolly Parton, “Coat of Many Colors” and Loretta Lynn, “Coal Miner’s Daughter” (both 1971)—If there was a “narrative songs about dirt-poor but loving Tennessee families who produced famous singing daughters,” well…okay, you get the point.

Vicki Lawrence, “The Night the Lights went out in Georgia” (1972)--Southern gothic at its best (and by “best,” I certainly mean grittiest). Corrupt cops, “backwoods southern lawyers,” promiscuity, family violence…once you read the lyrics, it’s almost too much to take. My mom loved this song, and of course when I was little I had no idea what the story actually entailed. But whenever Lawrence sang “The judge in the town’s got bloodstains on his hands,” my little body cringed and I imagined that his hands were actually bleeding. Reba McIntire did a cover of it in 1991, but the original holds up better.

Neil Young, “Alabama” (1972)

Ike and Tina Turner, “Nutbush City Limits” (1973)—Her hometown (apparently, though, barely incorporated) was Nutbush, TN. The lyrics are simple—she’s describing life in a pinprick southern town. “Church house/gin house, school house/outhouse”…come on! Maybe that’s southern history in a nutshell. (Pardon the pun.)

Lynyrd Skynyrd, “Sweet Home Alabama” (1974)

Outkast, “Rosa Parks” (1998)—The crazy thing is that I’ve heard this song play at weddings in the South, and some of the adults dancing to it have no clue as to what exactly they’re dancing to. That may be a phenomenon in itself—how Outkast became a wedding reception favorite.

Erykah Badu, “Southern Gul” (1999)—“I’ve got a dirty way, cause I’ve got a dirty mouth.” And she even “likes her tofu fried.” This is an unabashedly satirical little tune about the modern, southern black woman.

Allison Krauss, “The Scarlet Tide” (2003) –Krauss is always good, but here she’s absolutely haunting. It’s a woman trying to justify her husband’s absence. She’s smart, she understands the economic woes and politicking that are irrevocably connected to the Civil War, though—“swindlers who act like kings and brokers who break everything.” As the listeners, we get a sense that her husband isn’t coming back, that the blood trickling down through the mountain is going to make her a widow, no longer a bride.

Zac Brown Band, “Chicken Fried” (2009)—The more I listen to this, I think it’s not only great country-pop, but it’s also lyrically beautifully. “It’s clear when love is grown in southern ground” and “let freedom forever fly”…that’s timeless stuff.