Georgia On My Mind

37, Day 84 (Written Monday March 5) ~ I will ALWAYS be a Tennessee boy. Like Randy Owens once said, pardon me for adapting the lyrics to fit my situation, “My home’s in Tennessee, no matter where I lay my head.” However, when I do something I usually try to invest in it fully and embrace everything about it. I plan on doing this with Georgia. I will eat the peaches, I already love shrimp/fish and grits, try Vidalia onions and pronounce pecans “pee-cans.” I’m planting two Sago Palms in my yard as quickly as possible and I’m hoping to go gator hunting in the swamps too. I’ve spent a lot of time lately thinking about life in Georgia, and it dawned on me that there are a number of my favorite songs that mention Georgia in the title or lyrics.
Georgia On A Fast Train by Billie Joe Shaver ~ This song has been covered by a number of artists, including Johnny Cash with his son, and also Willie Nelson. Billy Joe Shaver made this song popular with his version, but the one that I love the most is Todd Snider’s done acoustically. Billy Joe’s version is almost ironically humorous, while Snider’s is hauntingly sad. “On a rainy, windy morning, that’s the day that I was born on, in the old sharecroppers one room country shack. They say my mammy left me, same day that she had me, said she hit the road and never once looked back. I’ve been to Georgia on a fast train honey, I wasn’t born no yesterday. I got a good Christian raising and an eight grade education, ain’t no need in y’all a treating me this way.”
Georgia Peaches by Lynyrd Skynyrd ~ You can’t live in the South and not be a fan of Skynyrd, and I have for many years, but not of the usual suspects (Sweet Home Alabama, Freebird, Simple Man, etc). My three favorite Skynyrd songs are: I Need You, All I Have Is A Song and Georgia Peaches (even though it completely rips off the bass line from The Doors song “Five To One”). The first time I heard this song was in an old station wagon with Jode Holden, Brad Liddie, Kevin Ponds and Mikey Michelle coming back across the Lake Pontchartrain causeway into Mandeville after spending my first day in New Orleans. “I think she’s cute, I think she’s cute as she can be. I’m talking ‘bout a funny talking, honky tonking Georgia peach.”
Lonely Night In Georgia by Marc Brussard ~ Marc Brussard is actually a young white guy from Carencro, Louisiana but he was blessed with a deep as a ditch voice that is as rich and gravelly as any old Mississippi Delta blues juke joint performer. I first got into his music when I heard his song “Home” (which has as good a stomp/clap breakdown as I’ve ever heard), but it was his lazy as the Sewanee River (with pauses so long you think he’s forgotten the lyrics) tale of lonely nights on the road, that spoke to me the most. “Stoplights turn to skylines and my mind turns to you, two hundred miles behind, off to this roadside dive, wondering how this cup of coffee’s gonna see me through. But this has been our story, same sad song, ever since the day, the day you came along. It’s a lonely night in Georgia and everything I do reminds me of being with you. It’s a lonely night, but I’ll be alright, ‘cause I’m coming on home, coming on home to you. Skylines turn into stoplights, another town, another crowd. When all the peoples gone home, I’m left all alone, with nothing but you to think about. But this has been our story, I know you’ve heard it all before, ‘cause every time I come home, you know I’m right back out that door....your peach kisses ripened by your southern sun smile, now my senses are heightened with the last hundred miles.”
Washed My Hands In Muddy Water by John Boutte ~ Whenever I have to sit in front of a computer in my office all day, I always turn on internet radio to lighten the mood. One of my favorites is 90.7 WWOZ out of (you guessed it), New Orleans. Until the hurricane it was located in the Treme neighborhood, but today it sits in the heart of the French Quarter. One day while listening I heard a voice that stood out from all the others. It was reminiscent of Sam Cooke, in fact he was singing Sam Cooke’s “A Change Gonna Come.” I stopped what I was doing and started searching until I discovered it was John Boutte. Born and raised right there in the Treme, he performs virtually every Saturday night at dba on Frenchman Street. This introduced me to his music, but it was only the beginning of my love of it. Before long I ran across his cover of an old song (Elvis once did a version of it) called “Washed My Hands In Muddy Water.” It tells the sad story of a boy whose father encouraged him not to follow in his criminal footsteps by keeping his hands clean, yet his life turned out exactly the same. It begins, “I was born in Macon, Georgia, they kept my daddy in the Macon jail. He said ‘Son if you keep your hands clean, you won’t have to hear those bloodhounds on your trail.’ I washed my hands in muddy water, I washed my hands, but they didn’t come clean. I tried to do what my daddy told me, I must have washed my hands in a muddy stream.” I’d listen to John Boutte sing the phone book.
Pine Box by Doug Stone ~ When Jade and I were in high school she worked at Hillcrest Country Club and frequently had to close up at night on Saturdays. I would go out there to be with her so she wasn’t alone and played the juke box until she was done. One night a song came on the juke box automatically that I wasn’t familiar with, but I’ve listened to a million times since. It was one of the saddest, but at the same time most romantic songs I’d ever heard. “I said the night you left me, nothing worse could ever happen, but seeing you with someone else proved that I was wrong. And when your eyes met mine I knew that you were gone forever, along with all the reasons I had for hanging on. I’d be better off in a pine box on a slow train back to Georgia, or in the grey walls of a prison doing time....than to lie here with you and him together on my mind.” This is what real country music sounds like, but you’d never know it by listening to “country” radio today.
Christmas In Dixie by Alabama ~ I realize this might be a seasonal song, but it is one of my all time favorite Christmas songs. The lyrics speak of a man who has spent a lot of time traveling the country and even though these places aren’t home, he can reminisce about them and imagine them during the holidays. “By now in New York City, there’s snow on the ground, and out in California, the sunshine’s falling down, and maybe down in Memphis, Graceland’s all in lights, and in Atlanta, Georgia, there’s peace on earth tonight. Christmas in Dixie, it’s snowing in the pines. Merry Christmas from Dixie, to everyone tonight.
These are my Georgia songs. Who knows, one day I may write one myself. Can you think of any?