War Of Words

 Southern man, better keep your head  - Don't forget what your good book said

Well I hope Neil Young will remember
A southern man don't need him around anyhow

That first line is what gave rise to the second couplet. Neil Young sang a song about a Southern Man. Then a group of Southern Men named Lynyrd Skynryd wrote their response. I should point out here that Neil is a Great White Northern Man, a Canadian who became an American citizen last year so that he could vote in the presidential election. The surviving members of Lynyrd Skynyrd continue to sing their anthem, while Neil has gone on record for taking a condescending swipe at a generality. 

But then there's this: Now Watergate does not bother me - Does your conscience bother you? Ronnie Van Zant wrote those words just a little more than a year before Richard Nixon resigned from office. Ronnie didn't live long enough to witness the events of the past four years. Neil did. I believe that Neil's conscience doesn't bother him, because he had the peace of mind to mend fences. The lyrics of Sweet Home Alabama have not aged as well. Or maybe they live on as reminders of a past we would do best not to forget. Way back when George Wallace, a Democrat, was governor and worked to keep his state segregated, the folks in Birmingham loved him. Most of them. The ones who could vote, anyway. Fifty some years later, Alabama has another Democrat in the governor's mansion. Kay Ivey recently signed a bil into law that would ban curbside voting. While not as severe as those put in place by their neighbors to the east, the arc of time will need some extra torque to bend it back toward justice. Voter suppression continues in the south, and it doesn't take a Neil Young song to stir people up about it. 

Growing up in Colorado, I was always a little put off by the way John Denver and his music was used as a pop cultural blanket reference to my home state. Mister Denver was born in New Mexico, and as an Air Force brat, he was dragged around the country via his father's career. He dropped his father's name Henry Deutschendorf opting for his middle name and the capital of the state he liked best. And while there was nothing tremendously offensive about his "far-out" sensibilities, I always felt a little chip on my shoulder when it came to his adoption of the place I actually grew up. My good friend from Muskogee, Oklahoma felt similarly about Merle Haggard, who never visited his hometown before writing about how proud he was to be an Okie from Muskogee. 

Which I suppose brings us back to Bruce Springsteen who once wrote about how Baby this town rips the bones from your back -It's a death trap, it's a suicide rap - We gotta get out while we're young and New Jersey state legislators thought it would be great if that was their state song. East, west, north, south. I'm not sure I get it.