Doug Lang : Down South

Added: Sep 6, 2010

From: paganmaestro

Duration: 5:23

I started writing this song in 2007, then added to it around the 40th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr's death in 2008. He died after being shot on the balcony of the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, as you likely know. "Down South" has passed through many changes, beginning as a song remembering a time when Dusty Springfield's album, "Dusty In Memphis," was on my turntable a lot. It ended up pulling on more than that, about visiting Dealey Plaza in Dallas, about Emmett Till, about Deliverance, about visiting Montgomery, Alabama, about travelling through Louisiana and up Highway 61 through Mississippi en route to Memphis. It came out of seeing places and learning about people and events I'd only known through music, books, articles. You could say it started out as a kind of love song, really, but eventually gained in sadness, as my feelings and awareness snuck up on me. I recorded it as a quick demo one night at Billy Mazappa's apartment. DL I was young when Dusty Springfield sang Son Of A Preacher Man / crossing troubled water by the bridge / A tune down from the boondocks rang off Miller's trailer tan / And Bobbie heard it up on Choctaw Ridge / James Dickey standing in the sun sweat dripping from his ear / Some bad thing happened that nobody would tell / A pillow that concealed a gun, a girl who smelled of beer / That humid night we heard somebody yell / Down south, down south / Living with so much to hide can't keep it in our mouth / A heartbeat loud as Memphis, chicken on the bluff / Rebels lookin' for a cause when love is not enough / Howlin' Wolf in Arkansas, Minnie's git-box down on Beale / I thought I saw old Furry sweeping still / After midnight there's no law that changes how you feel / There's always one with too much time to kill / No Otis singing by the dock, Duck Dunn or Bookie T / East McLemore, a Lincoln in the rain / A preacher man out for a walk on a motel balcony / A broken clock that won't turn back again / Down south, down south / Living with so much to hide can't keep it in our mouth / Isaac Hayes at midnight says, "I stand I stand accused" / Heartbeat loud as Memphis, chickens coming home to roost / "The only one who could ever reach me..." Dusty's velvet song / No flowers growing now on Choctaw Ridge / "The only boy who could ever teach me" silenced now and gone / Must've been a dream got thrown off that bridge / No deliverance in Aintree, but still that semper fi / Lies are always lookin' for a tongue / Where is Bobbie Gentry now and that song that made me cry / When Dusty sang that song and I was young / Down south, down south / Living with so much to hide can't keep it in our mouth / They tore down Becky Thompson's store in downtown Tupelo / Heartbeat loud as Memphis I hear it everywhere go / I hear it everywhere I go / I was young when Dusty Springfield sang Son Of A Preacher Man...

Channel: Music

Tags: doug  lang  down  south  dusty  springfield  bobbie  gentry  otis  redding  booker  memphis  martin  luther  king  paganmaestro 

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