But, when you consider the age of the song, was it really written essentially as irony? To a certain extent, yeah; it's too light-hearted, with the narrator loving the rosy-cheeked gal despite her beliefs, to be a straight-faced diatribe. But, if this came out of the southland (did it?)of the '20s, don't bet that the writer really believed in that citified, Satanic, Yankee doctrine.