Seed,

Merle and his band buddies were smokin' weed when they wrote Okie from Muskogee. They were on the band bus and saw the sign for Muskogee and someone offered the line "I'm proud to be an Okie from Muskogee."

It went on from there. At the time it was written, it was very "tongue in cheek." I don't think Merle and his dope smokin' buddies intended to write an anthem for the segment of our population they were parodying.

I bet they accepted all of the royalties, however.

This song, to me, is a prime example of the the rallying power of music and of how we might want to be careful just what we sing.

Roger in Baltimore