TENNESSEE

I learned this song from a classmate in 1954. I think he said he got it from his grandmother. I have since met only a couple of other people who have heard it. I would be glad to know where it came from. Is it propaganda?

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TENNESSEE

In Tennessee where I was born,
Don't go talkin' 'bout a frosty morn,
Cause the month was June and the day was hot.
The whole dang cabin was a deal upsot.
The cornfield burned and the spring ran dry.
The sweat ran down in my grandpap's eye.
The sun was tarnal and the yard was dust,
And mammy hollered like her heart would bust.

Who's gonna rustle up the biscuit bread?
A man-child's lucky if he ain't born dead,
And if he's born he's a mouth to feed.
Who'll help us in our time of need?
When mammy's thinking of a grave new-dug
And pappy's suckin' on the whisky jug.
You miss book learnin' when you're in your teens
But you reckon on the value of the pickled beans.

Grew to the stature of a rifle-gun,
Learned to lie quiet in the turkey run.
Listened to the tappin' of the peckerwood,
Thought to have a woman would be powerful good.
I learned with reason that in Tennessee
When two gets together there soon is three.
For all my reasonin' I'm in a fix,
Six years married and my brats is six.

Tennessee, you're a river fair,
Brown in the spring as a cinnamon bear,
Born in the laurel at a crystal spring
Up Clinch Mountain where the redbirds sing.
You grew up and so did I
Pickin' up dirt as ya passed it by.
You and me have a wrestlin' match
To settle our score by the bottom patch.

Plowed my bottom for to seed my corn,
Sweated in the sun that was hot at dawn.
Worked my critter till his withers bled,
Ma and the younguns pulled the plow instead.
It's come on rain and the stream's in flood,
Furrows all filled with sand and mud.
The water's rising to the slaunchwise ground,
Bottom's flooded and the corn's all drowned.

River's down and again it's June,
Mudflats shining in the silver moon.
Seed corn's gone and my critter's dead,
Children all crying for their gritted bread.
A man-child's fixing to be born this night,
The moon on the river makes a lonesome sight.
I sits and listens to the katydid
While my woman hollers like my mammy did.

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Tune in solfa (scale is DRMFSLTdrmfslt; dots mean continuation for half a beat):

S|S.m.m..m|m.r.r...
|S.r.rrrm|r.d.d.
dd|d.l.l.ll|l.s.s..
s|f.f.fmfs|f.m.m..

(repeat last two lines twice)