The Confederacy in Country Music (songs)

Subject: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Dad Perkins
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 02:47 PM

Hey Mudcatters.

I'm working on a research paper and I'm looking for sentimental Country tunes that mourn the loss of 'Southern Values' and/or the Confederacy after the war. My yardstick is David Allen Coe's 'Grandpa'.

"Grandpa I been thinkin bout you lately....I still sing the old songs that you taught me, and I still pray to Jesus now and then. Just like you I wish that he would save me, to see the day the South will Rise Again...."

The idea is to discover/discuss the possibility that the 'Lost Cause' mentality was funneled into Country music, where songs of greif and loss developed that are analogous to actual Civil War songs of battle field death.

My goodness what have I gotten myself into.

So let's call this game 'Country songs about the Confederacy' - go.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Maryrrf
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 03:29 PM

Here's one: "I Sang Dixie As He Died"

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: kendall
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 04:28 PM

Maybe it's because the South is still stuck in the 19th century?

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Midchuck
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 07:36 PM

Maybe it's because the South is still stuck in the 19th century?

Living in Maine - especially the last couple weeks - and saying that is calling the kettle black (not that I would accuse you of being a pot, of course...).

P.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: kendall
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 07:56 PM

I like the 19th century. I also like OLD country music.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 08:02 PM

As someone who has lived most of their life in the south - yes there are SOME people who are stuck in the 19th century. But not ALL of us are. To think that would be the height of delusion. Possibly even bigotry? It would be like saying all folksingers have beards.

"The night they drove old Dixie down" needs to be mentioned of course.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 08:08 PM

Y'know there are dozens of songs about wanting to get back home to my "little cabin" in the south. But I doubt they fill the bill for what you are after.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Dad Perkins
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 08:39 PM

Great threads already. Thank you. It's still a touchy subject isn't it?

I've been thinking recently about how country music was set up by the "Lost Cause" idea that pervaded the south and the country at large during Reconstruction. My idea is that elements of country music became the part of the national brain/heart where the mourning and loss of the South was given a forum to work itself out. Almost like a diary. That some entries would be heated, vitriolic, bigoted, hateful should be expected. Others have mediated the loss and grief and as we get further and further away from the War you see a gradual trailing off of those motifs in the music, BUT the song structures dealing with loss, grief, defeat, 'righteous' indignation etc. still pervade the music that was, in my growing opinion, founded on the stories that were constructed by the South about the South after the war.

Keep'm comin'. I appreciate any contribution to this conversation.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Dad Perkins
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 09:04 PM

@ Maryrrf. Perfect. absolutely perfect.
@wesley. Spent a half hour this afternoon musing on that tune. It will figure prominently. thanks for the heads up.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: J-boy
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:18 PM

The losing side usually writes the better songs. Just ask the Irish.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Wesley S
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 10:46 PM

As I said before there are hundreds of songs that talk about the pride of living in the south or how someone can't wait to get below the Mason-Dixon line again to see their folks on the old homestead. That shouldn't be confused with meaning that there is any agreement or alignment with the values of the Confederacy. Those are two very different issues.

One song you might find useful is the Charlie Daniels song "The Souths gonna do it again". It has a line that says "Be proud you're a rebel cause the Souths gonna do it again". But even that might not qualify as I understand the point of your research.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Ron Davies
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 11:12 PM

I would disagree that "I Sang Dixie" mourns either the loss of Southern values or the loss of the Confederacy.

If you listen to it carefully with an open mind (which I hope Mudcatters can do)--especially when sung by Dwight Yoakum-, it seems clear it's about the loss of a man who did identify with the South.   But the protagonist mourns the death of that man--dying far from his home--not any "Lost Cause" regrets.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Dad Perkins
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 11:28 PM

Interestingly, I'm beginning to understand that what we conceive of as "alignment with the Confederacy" is a really really complex issue which has to do the way the South re-sculpted the meaning of the war after the fact. "the North won the war, but the South one the peace". What that quote refers to is the way that the South was sucsessful in remaking its own image after the fact as the 'beautiful downtrodden losers' of an unjust tyranny instead of slave holders who enjoyed the lifestyle of owning slaves.

This was undertaken conciously as they tried to, effectively, re-write history with, for instance, the much trumpeted notion of the grateful slave who was perfectly happy and content within the plantation system. This was, obviously, total horse-shit, and all anybody ever had to do was listen to some field hollers to dispel the notion.

But the zeal with which the enterprise was undertaken, and is success in recasting the South as the last vestige of traditional, pre-industrial agricultural America is STILL WITH US IN COUNTRY MUSIC, which is music that I love sort of for that reason. It has (or had at least up to the 60's) some whiff of authenticity. I think the most interesting thing that can be looked into within country music is WHERE that sense of authenticity comes from. Was there ever really a Country music? Or did the advent of radio, highly corporatized music publishing, and cultural NEED for catharsis and continuity demand that country music be developed.

The ballad form, which had 600 years of dealing with death and betrayal already codified, was close at hand.

This is highly simplified I know but I think it's an interesting avenue of inquiry.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Dad Perkins
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 11:34 PM

RE: the grateful slave narrative that was paraded around by groups like the CVU look no further than that ol' standard 'Little Log Cabin on the Lane" by Fiddlin' John Carson

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Ron Davies
Date: 08 Apr 11 - 11:47 PM

And of course "Carry Me Back To Old Virginny"--written by a black man, James A. Bland.

Was he wrong to pander to the "happy slave" myth---, since that attitude was the difference between success and failure as a composer?

The version I have of that song says in the introduction that he had been "denied a place as a minstrel because of his color".    How's that for irony?

And he took to "writing songs which were eagerly accepted"   by the same managers who had turned him down as a minstrel .

It is perilously easy to oversimplify this topic.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: J-boy
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 12:01 AM

I think(or hope)it's a very small minority in the south who still hold a grudge after one hundred and fifty years. The rebel cause at this point is little more than an affectation or hobby. Most of the country is well beyond caring. But then again, I'm a Mainer.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: GUEST,Roger Knowles
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 05:45 AM

Howsabout "The Union Mare & The Confederate Gray"? I thought that weas a pretty good song.
Also 'Two Soldiers"?
Also "Blue-Eyed Boston Boy" ( If that's it's real title?

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: doc.tom
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 06:05 AM

I think you need to define some time-scales here. Are you looking at songs in 2011, or at the evolution of sentiment into song at the creation of 'country' (however you define that), or are you looking at the entire evolution from the time of the Civil War into the modern era?

As background, I found E. Lawrence Abel's "Singing the New Nation: How Music Shaped the Confederacy 1861-1865" (2000, pub.Stackpole Books, Mechanicsburg, PA) to be a very good analysis - it also shows how sentiment gets amplified through popular song. Could be a good starting point!

Good luck with it, whichever way you're doing it.

TomB

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: kendall
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 07:04 AM

I've spent a lot of time in the south, and I have mixed feelings about it. On the one hand, I have seen so much ignorance, I walk into a book store and all I see is Road&Track, Field & Stream, Guns & Ammo, people who can't discuss anything but the war to resist Northern aggression, and County music.
On the other hand I've known many who are educated, interesting, damn good musicians and just plain nice folks. I have half a dozen close friends in the south.

I guess my point is, people are people no matter where you go.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Dad Perkins
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 10:00 AM

@ Ron Davies:

I think that '...Ol' Virginny' stands out as an exception and should be treated as such. It was/is a highly controversial tune. "Was he wrong to pander to the happy slave myth...?"

Well, if the discussion moves into the territory of making value judgements about compositional standards (which I think is appropriate and am happy to do here) then I'd venture to say Yes, it was wrong. The happy slave myth was a myth. Willfully engaging in promoting that myth within a for profit industry seems pretty gross to me.

I appreciate your assesment that it is perilously easy to oversimplify this topic. That's becoming more and more clear and I am going to be mindful of that as I go forward. It's so damn interesting though, and I hope I can make some of this stuff stick because I think there's a thread of truth to it.

@ doc.tom

For the purposes of my research right now I'll be looking at the Sentimental Songs/Ballads of the CW as representations of 19th values regarding death, loss and mourning. (*Then a miracle occurs*) After that I will posit that the Lost Cause/New South movement that cropped up during Reconstruction laid the ground work for a musical genre into which those values could be funneled to mourn the loss of the War and traditional southern values. ie: Country Music. I will argue that the trend of Confederate ideations expressed within Country Music can be viewed as a process of mourning in line with the 19th century standards of mourning which were popularly expressed in the songs of the period.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: GUEST,999
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 10:27 AM

I would opine that Foster laid a foundation for the notion of the 'happy slave' with some of his material. The displays of the Confederate flag harkens to a dark age: nostalgia, pining for 'the way it was'. Agggh.

Although I'm aware that in the War of the Northern Aggression, aka the Civil War, slavery was only an afterthought for many of the other issues your country faced at the time, racism seems to be a big part of it in the retrospect of and present-day philosophy of the South. The WHITE South.

Of course, mileages will vary on that view.

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be. I wish you success with your study. Big job you took on.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Stringsinger
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 11:53 AM

The South is a two-handed place. On one hand, you have the mythical "South" with Scarlett O'Hara, darkie songs, so-called Southern gentlemen, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and a glorification of the Confederate army and the Confederacy.

The real South has coal miners fighting for their rights and livelihoods, institutions like the Highlander Folk School who were integral to the Civil Rights Movement, many black heroes and musicians as well who gave us the blues and jazz.

I have the same ambivalence that Kendall has about the South. I love the old-time folk music of the early banjo pickers and singers and I have an antipathy for the maudlin sentimentalization of the Civil War and "the South shall rise again-sters". To me, this is phony.

I am uncomfortable with the attitudes of many bluegrass musicians who hang on to these phony "South shall rise again" values and it tends to turn me off to the music. I am uncomfortable with the emphasis on drinking, gambling, fighting and infidelity that is glorified and commericalized in Trashville country songs. On the other hand, I admire the importance of the folk songs that come out of the "hardscrabble" conditions of poor tenant farmers, isolated Appalachian families, Black People who have fought hard for their rights, coal miners (the real heroes of legend, not the cowboy), Southern unions, traditional balladeers and the lively dance music of hoe-downs and set-runnings. It seems to me that the phony nostalgia gets in the way of appreciating the real contributions of Southern music, being a tool for White-Ring propaganda, prejudice, bigotry and racial discrimination.

I would like to see more African-American people in bluegrass music to counter the negative attitudes of some of those white players. Bill Monroe was a complicated character, not admirable in his behavior, a formidable mandolin player though he does give credit to the blues for his style of playing which comes from Black People.

Earl Scruggs on the other hand seemed like a real gentleman and not part of the "tude"
that you get from some bluegrassers.

Alan Lomax told me the story of Hobart Smith and Mississippi John Hurt getting together to play music. Hobart was prejudiced. John was black. But when the two sat down to play music together, they appreciated each other so much that the wall melted away.



The Civil War was fought over slavery, regardless of any propaganda out there. An acknowledgement of this would go a long way to having an appreciation for the real values of the South, not the Senator Claghorn (Leghorn) stereotype or the Scarlett O'Hara phony pure white Southern womanhood. In it's place, we could learn to appreciate the folk music and the honest expression of the Southern people.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Stringsinger
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 12:00 PM

I think that The Carolina Chocolate Drops has gone a long way to show that "country" music is just a white thing and that black people can not only do it as well but lead the way in appreciating the history of Southern folk music.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: kendall
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 12:24 PM

The Civil war started over the plan to take slavery into Kansas and Nebraska. Then it came down to keeping the Union together. That was Lincoln's main goal.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: kendall
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 12:25 PM

Stringsinger, are you familiar with the Battle of Blair Mountain, or Matewan? That was the real south too.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 03:58 PM

An interesting subject.

There was song a few years back that went

I believe the South will rise again
Not in the old way (it hastened to add!) but the punceline was pretty powerful

Is it fanciful to hear a rejection of Northern values in such chestnuts as Okie from Muskogee and Up Against the Wall, You Rednck Mother?

A modicum of regret that the North won the Civil War.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: GUEST,Alan Whittle
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 04:01 PM

And furthermore a seething resentment at the centre of randy Newman's Rednecks - anger at the way people from his region are stereotyped, by 'smart' yankees.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 05:34 PM

On one hand, you have the mythical 'South' with Scarlett O'Hara, darkie songs, so-called Southern gentlemen, Uncle Tom's Cabin, and a glorification of the Confederate army and the Confederacy.

What's Uncle Tom's Cabin doing in that list? My impression is that the myth of the Golden South does not include old slaves being flogged to death by their owners.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: kendall
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 07:52 PM

A healthy slave cost thousands of dollars. Beating one to death is just not credible.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: GUEST,Guest
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 08:06 PM

Maybe Johnny Cash's "Hey Porter"?

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Maryrrf
Date: 09 Apr 11 - 10:02 PM

Here's another, but I couldn't find a very good version of it Will My Soul Pass Through the Southland?. I heard it done at a concert and I believe it was recorded in the 30's, but not sure who the singer was.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: GUEST,Mike Rogers
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 04:57 AM

Mention of 'Hey Porter' reminds me that many of the train songs in country music extol the virtues of heading south. Without even breaking sweat I think of
Pan American - Hank Williams
City of New Orleans - Steve Goodman
The Golden Rocket - Hank Snow

Converesly I can't think of one northbound train song.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: GUEST,kendall
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 06:22 AM

Every one I have ever heard do this one is done the same way. Why do they have to modulate the key?

It is of course, based on the old Irish song, Kevin Barry.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Ron Davies
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 08:55 AM

What's more, "Rebel Soldier" is also an Irish song, I believe, called "Will My Soul Pass Through Old Ireland?".    Same plot, even same tune.    Original was "Brixton prison", now it's "Yankee prison".


Note that slavery is not mentioned in "Rebel Soldier" as sung by Country Gentlemen etc.

Note too, that again it is a man dying, and that it is, strictly speaking, bluegrass, not country music.   Finally, though this song is a big hit in the bluegrass community, so too are songs like "Faded Coat of Blue".    The way the issue is finessed sometimes in "Faded Coat", written at the end of the Civil War about a Union soldier dying and sung for instance by the Carter Family (who do want to appeal to a Southern base) is that the Carters transplant it to the Spanish- American War.

There is a very strong tradition in country and bluegrass to honor the dead of various wars.

As I said earlier, country and bluegrass is a very complex subject which does not lend itself to facile generalizations.

Of course it is true they are not about to honor the Union dead--just soldiers from after the Civil War.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: GUEST,bankley
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 09:28 AM

Steve Earle has a couple of good ones, from the perspective of infantrymen on both sides

Ben McCullough (Texas)
Dixieland (Maine)

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 03:45 PM

Hi Kendall, researched them on Wikipedia. Very much like the Coal Creek Rebellion in the 1880's where the governor called for scab labor from convicts while the Guard tried to oppress the miners. From this, we have Uncle Dave's "Buddy Won't You Roll
Down That Line?"

Do we see a historical pattern here? Then there's Woody's "Ludlow Massacre'.
And there's Woody's "1913 Massacre"

And today we have Massey Energy under Don Blankenship repeating history in the
Upper Branch Mine.


Jean Ritchie's epic "Black Water" about mountaintop removal and "The L.and N. Don't Stop Here Anymore" about what happens when the Company abandons the miners.

Southern history is being made today.   The real heroes are the Southern coal miners, not the yokel Confederate soldiers.

BTW the Re-enactment People have rewritten history too.

Did you know that "Dixie" is not a Southern song? Dan Emmett was a supporter of the Union in the Civil War. A publishing company in New Orleans stole the song and attempted to copyright it. That's how it wound up in the South.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Stringsinger
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 04:02 PM

Most of the bluegrass songwriting about the Civil War is sentimental drivel.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: kendall
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 04:06 PM

Bluegrass is not known for its lyrics.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 04:10 PM

It's gonna be hard finding much that mourns the loss but plenty of raw anger at the government... Today's country songs are littered with Southern "pride" and "arrogance"...

"A country boy will survive..."...

B~

Subject: Lyr Add: LEGEND OF THE REBEL SOLDIER (Country Gent
From: pdq
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 04:13 PM

"LEGEND OF THE REBEL SOLDIER" ~ as done by the Country Gentlemen

{aka "Shall My Soul Pass Through the Southland"}


In a dreary Yankee prison
Where a rebel soldier lay
By his side there stood a preacher
Ere his soul should pass away
And he faintly whispered: Parson
As he clutched him by the hand
Oh, parson, tell me quickly
Will my soul pass through the Southland?

Will my soul pass through the Southland
Through old Virginia grants
Will I see the hills of Georgia
And the green fields of Alabam?
Will I see that little church house
Where I pledged my heart and hand
Oh, parson, tell me quickly
Will my soul pass through the Southland?

Was for loving dear old Dixie
In this dreary cell I lie
Was for loving dear old Dixie
In this northern state I die
Will you see my little daughter
Will you make her understand
Oh, parson, tell me quickly
Will my soul pass through the Southland?

Then the Rebel Soldier Died

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Ron Davies
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 07:57 PM

"Most...is sentimental drivel".

Correction:   Most of what the illustrious poster has heard.

But that has never stopped Mudcatters from smearing a whole genre in the past.

It's also possible that the poster in question has a low tolerance for sentimental songs.

Some people have a higher tolerance.

Country and bluegrass in general has a high level of sentimentality.   Some like it. Some don't.

That's what makes the world go round.


And the poster should count himself lucky he's not living in the 19th century--the real time that sentimental songs ruled popular music.    Now there are lots of alternatives.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Wesley S
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 08:17 PM

Agreed Ron. Wasn't it Sturgon's Law that said 75 { or is it 90 } percent of everything is crap? Why pick on bluegrass - if you'll pardon the pun?

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Hrothgar
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 11:03 PM

If you play these songs backwards, does it mean that you get your girl, your dpg, your truck, and your slaves back?

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Ron Davies
Date: 10 Apr 11 - 11:06 PM

Some posters who enjoy smug generalizations might think so.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Jack Campin
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 08:21 AM

A lot of the rhetoric of southern-nostalgia songs seems to have been borrowed from Scottish Jacobite song (which was still an ongoing industry generating new songs at the time of the American civil war, and given a new lease of life, or at least twitching undead reanimation, by colour printing and the phonograph).

On the other hand, there isn't a tradition of Scottish sentimental song about loss comparable to C&W - Jacobite song didn't mutate in the way you're suggesting, it just fossilized.

Surely a lot of country was influenced by German and Russian Jewish sentimental parlour song and Thomas Moore Oirishry in the same way as Northern "Tin Pan Alley" stuff?

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Dad Perkins
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 09:01 AM

@ Jack,

Thanks for some astute observations and historical ideas. I'll look into those. That's good stuff.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Stringsinger
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 11:15 AM

"But that has never stopped Mudcatters from smearing a whole genre in the past.
It's also possible that the poster in question has a low tolerance for sentimental songs."

It isn't just the sentimental drivel but the propagandistic effects that it has which is used by the Southern White Ring. The pro Southern side of the Civil War is trumped up, and the "South shall rise againsters" belie the honesty of the lyrics.

As to the nature of Bluegrass, it is a Johnny-Come-Lately as of the 1940's.
It isn't fully matured as a genre of music as is say jazz. It is not above criticism as an art form.

As to sentimental songs in the 19th century, they were a mixed bag. Some were jingoistic such as "If you don't like your Uncle Sammy" to forerunners of the German popular song sentimentality that predated the 1920's in Berlin.

It's not the sentimentality I object to per se but the use of it as a racist propaganda tool as was done with the song "Dixie".

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: Stringsinger
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 11:18 AM

Confederacy=racism.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: kendall
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 07:59 PM

Not totally. It is also hatred of being told how to live, and being bullied by the government.

Subject: RE: the Confederacy in Country Music
From: J-boy
Date: 11 Apr 11 - 11:40 PM

You are quite correct Kendall. But I think you and I can both agree that the "better" side won.