Discuss the lyrics of "Rednecks" by Randy Newman; (caution: nasty racial terminology)

by Randy Newman

Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show
With some smart-ass New York Jew
And the Jew laughed at Lester Maddox
And the audience laughed at Lester Maddox too
Well, he may be a fool but he's our fool
If they think they're better than him they're wrong
So I went to the park and I took some paper along
And that's where I made this song

We talk real funny down here
We drink too much and we laugh too loud
We're too dumb to make it in no Northern town
Keepin' the niggers down

We got no-necked oilmen from Texas
And good ol' boys from Tennessee
And colleges men from LSU
Went in dumb - come out dumb too
Hustlin' 'round Atlanta in their alligator shoes
Gettin' drunk every weekend at the barbecues
Keepin' the niggers down

We're rednecks, we're rednecks
We don't know our ass from a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
We're keeping the niggers down

Now your northern nigger's a Negro
You see he's got his dignity
Down here we're too ignorant to realize
That the North has set the nigger free

Yes he's free to be put in a cage
In Harlem in New York City
And he's free to be put in a cage in the South-Side of Chicago, the West-Side
And he's free to be put in a cage in Hough in Cleveland
And he's free to be put in a cage in East St. Louis
And he's free to be put in a cage in Fillmore in San Francisco
And he's free to be put in a cage in Roxbury in Boston
They're gatherin' 'em up from miles around
Keepin' the niggers down

We're rednecks, rednecks
And we don't know our ass from a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
We're keeping the niggers down

We are keeping the niggers down

I just think the "ass from a hole in the ground" line is clunky and doesn't really fit with the rest of the song.

So everyone thinks it's ham-fisted except me. Huh.

"good old boys" (the record this "rednecks" song is from) esp has lots of songs about the south & racial identity stuff.

xpost, i meant on the good ol boys lp

For what it's worth, _Sail Away_ hit me harder than _Good Ol' Boys_, & I think his attempts to have & eat his cake while indicting all cake-eaters are stronger on _SA_ (cf. "Political Science") than the song in question.

x-post * 37

It links the stupidity of Newman's cartoon version of the South with the landscape itself. As in, we don't know where we end and the the South begins. Of course, he's poking fun at that attitude but in it's context the line simultaneously sounds like a put down and a call to arms.

I think the song is more about embracing idicocy and bigotry as human than a real satire on the politics of the South/North. So, the first verse tries to position the song as a kinda Sweet Home Alabama. The Newman, apparently trying to prove why the South is so good and worthy of defence, goes straight for the jugular: we're racist fucks.

But, and here's the clincher, so are you. He's saying geographical pride is racist, in a sense, but that geographical pride is a response to geographical snobbism, ie rascism. Rascism begets rascism begets rascism I suppose.

But then after the last verse, the chorus come back, but this time the "we" means something entirely different. We're all fucking rednecks, every one of us, and that "we" isn't a persona any more, it's really us, and the joke's on you for singing along, asshole. And still you sing along.

was maddox really an unreconstructed (or perhaps we should say "constructed") redneck? there's actually a certain gentility about the major players in late segregation, a gentility that usually has a very obvious limit and it's around that limit, where you can see both the mask and glimpses of the hatred behind it, that it gets most interesting. newman sort of sidesteps this

also i don't think there's any value in being outre in itself...i suppose newman playing this song is daring, but to what end? following this line of thought takes us to gg allin territory (blech)

i always thought the problem in this song is that while it is no doubt "multileveled" and can't be reduced easily, it's differing levels are sort of telegraphed sequentially, like different levels of satire tossed out in succession, rather than interacting at once. it sort of feels like a suite in that sense

you know what i mean?

"parody" has potential sometimes, but it's efficacy shouldn' be presumed. i'm much more impressed when people can be obviously deadly serious and committed and still be offensive

i meant to suggest that in marcus's book he makes something of a "deal" out of randy's satire being misunderstood and him being daring for that reason, but i detect some self-flattery in the presumption that there are legions who are somehow missing the point of his oh so complex music

i think his recording of "under the yellow moon" in its way does a lot of the stuff "rednecks" is credited for, and is more effective for its impregnability

j/k

under the yellow moon, being a cover, is just...there. it doesn't have its dialectic splayed out sequentially, in discrete parts. it forces you to think about when the song was written, what it might have meant back then, who it was written for, etc

seems to me that the time & authorial distance of an old cover is way simpler to deal with than "rednecks"

he played it at the Beale Street Music Fetival in Memphis, TN with the "niggers" intact. The audience immediately in front of the stage was 97% white, but there was a large number of Black people at the festival within earshot. I seem to remember a few surprised glances in his direction.

good points all around, Fritz especially otm...

also, 12 Songs, Sail Away, & Good Ol' Boys are must-haves.

From the Rhino greatest hits notes - "I saw Lester Maddox on The Dick Cavett Show. The audience was rude to him before he said anything. I felt that they should have let him say something idiotic before they treated him like an idiot." He also says that "Marie" was a further attempt to explain "Rednecks". Re: "Sail Away", he says, "A recruiter for the slave trade. How else could I do it--slavery is bad?"

The Rhino greatest hits ("The Best of Randy Newman") is a decent collection with acceptable flow and an ideal intro for people who need an intro, but he has made at least two great albums that are probably better starters for people who don't. Good Old Boys was my first Randy album and I think the best musically/production-wise and as synthesis of music and ideas (he's more explicitly political on Sail Away, which has some even better music, but it's a lesser album on the whole, though I haven't given it much of a chance yet) and probably the place to start. 12 Songs is much more subtle in tone (though equally felt once you get into it) and especially in production (which made me slower to warm to it after the full-bodiedness of Good Old Boys), and not a theme album (though it has themes), but the writing is pretty impeccable and Xgau says it's a "perfect album". To be facile, Good Old Boys is Sticky Fingers, 12 Songs is Exile.

And college men from LSU
Went in dumb - come out dumb too
Hustlin' 'round Atlanta in their alligator shoes
Gettin' drunk every weekend at the barbecues

Yeah, it seems like there was a time (maybe this is still true) when being any kind of white yankee intellectual type branded you a "Jew," especially if you were from New York, and "New York" itself was kind of a euphemism for a certain sort of liberal Jewishness.

That said, I like 12 Songs. At least I did when I was, like, four. And Sail Away has its moments. I guess.

uh, how am I apologizing for him? I'm explaining my take on the song.

I fail to see how it is "ham fisted", although I suppose it could be argued. But I have no idea how you could argue that this song is "one sided" at all.

Seriously though, they are a fucking great band - I've seen them live twice, and always come back to their records. The new one and Pizza Deliverance are my favorites. Patterson is supposed to be officially releasing that solo album of his sometime this year....

this is, in its way, as hilarious a line as anything randy newman has ever written.

When I saw Newman do the song in October at the Birchmere in Alexandria, VA outside DC, in his intro he noted that he had the narrator thinking Dick Cavett was "a smartass NY Jew." Though, yea Newman is himself Jewish.

I remember the demos (included w/ the _GOB_ reissue) feature Randy's explanation of the album concept and the songs, but I can't recall what he said about this one...

-- David R., February 10th, 2004

I don't think I've listened to this for a LONG time. Gotta dig it out!

that song is actually a putdown of the south as much as it is liberals who have no sympathy for a region that really was and has been involved in keeping a large segment of its population down. I mean fuck, Lester Maddox was a monster. the guy in the song is a lower-middle-class person with, somehow, access to a great arranger and a recording studio. he's smart enough to try to buy some sympathy by acting like an avenging hick and he's resentful of the college men who don't get any education at LSU.

it's such a common line down here, that up north they're still racist, but just in a different way. yeah, right. in the south, it's a caste system and fucking medieval; in chicago or detroit or new york, sure it's racist, all of this country is, but there is a different level of "you're-on-your-own" politics there, since there's a far more elaborated structure that black people could participate in, if not fully. this has changed somewhat, of course, with the rise of atlanta as a major city and as a capital of black america, if not the capital. it's a disturbing song. as xgau wrote long ago, the darker irony of the song is that indeed, that's the big thing: keepin' the niggers down, or at least thinking in such degraded terms. and that newman is attracted to racism, sees its power. as do I; when I was maybe five, I got the clear message from people here that blacks were the Other. no matter what they did, they couldn't win. if they tried to get educated and respectable, they were just imitating, poorly, white people. if they didn't try, they were worthless because they weren't trying. it's an insane way of thinking and could only come from a region where an educated black person with something to say to white people was basically unheard of, I mean I never once heard of a black person like that in my hometown in Tennessee. it's like black people didn't exist.

"French niggers."

And that's them being kind of poetic, altho not in the way Randy Newman is. This whole place is full of people who think that way. It's medieval, and if they could run it like a big plantation with Serfs and Overseers on Horses, they would. They never heard of nothing that a black person did except breed, fuck and gen'l'y fuck up the system they "own," but maybe Dallas is ahead of the game there, being a really new place.

However, I did have to go to college in west texas, which seemed like entering a time warp, and am in no hurry to go back. I fucking hate living in small, dead towns, in Texas, Illinois or otherwise. Racism is just one of the things that makes a closed, insular community for the birds. xp

I was listening to the deluxe version last night - good god, the sequence of "Shining"-"Marie"-"Good Morning" is just devastating. I mean, "Marie" in itself is sad enough, but with the added narrative, all the nice sentiment of it is destroyed.

some reeeetarded azz posts in this thread

ehh apart from mr. adultery there's mostly good discussion, I dig Marcel's post.

seriously people you gotta hear "Shining"

some reeeetarded azz posts in this thread

― GANGSTA KILLER (deej), Monday, November 16, 2009 9:36 PM (Yesterday) Bookmark

This song is about George W. Bush, or so one would think.

― Geir Hongro (GeirHong), Thursday, November 16, 2006 2:43 PM (3 years ago) Bookmark

though mine are pretty embarassing in retrospect too. i think the real key to this song is that it's really fun to sing that line about LSU