North Toward Home
Though I’ve gone away
Left the place that made me what I am
Guess I’ve gone away for good
Though I’ve gone away
North toward home but not forgetting
I won’t even if I could
North Toward Home is the title of an excellent memoir by Willie Morris, who grew up in Yazoo City, Mississippi, attended University of Texas, and then landed in NYC, where he became editor-in-chief of Harper’s Magazine. He is probably best known as the author of My Dog Skip, which was made into a fairly successful feature film of the same name in 2000.
Why am I telling you all this? It’s not because my high school girlfriend’s mother, also from Yazoo City, taught Willie Morris piano. (Actually I just checked with said now ex-girlfriend, who has corrected the record: Her mother taught music at the Yazoo City primary school when Willie was there but maybe didn’t give him lessons. Hair-splitting? She did have perfect pitch, which I duly tested by having her name the notes sounded by the doorbell at their house.)
I’m telling you all this because I name-check Willie Morris’ memoir in a recent song I wrote about being from Mississippi (see lyrics above). My path roughly parallels Willie’s — I too am from Mississippi, I went to college in Texas, and then I landed in NYC. Willie eventually returned to Mississippi; the jury is still out on that one for me. That neither I nor my career are anywhere near as remarkable goes without saying — so I’m not saying it.
Everybody says “write what you know”, and sometime back in December or so I had the idea to write a song about where I come from. I’ve been in NYC for so long that I suspect my Mississippi roots are hard to detect. But they are there.
I’ve already posted the song and accompanying video on FaceBook, so you may know it already. But I thought I’d talk a bit about some of the lyrics:
Pouring gasoline
In the nest where they were sleeping
Pouring till there was no more
Strike match cause a scene
From the nest we saw them streaming
Streaming till they were no more
There were big fire ant nests in the backyard of my grandmother Daisy’s house in New Augusta, Mississippi, and I have a vivid memory of my father and his older brother Waldo pouring gasoline into the nests and setting them on fire. The ants would stream out in an attempt to escape the conflagration. Fighting fire with fire indeed. Fitting metaphor for violent attempts to root out a perceived threat? Maybe.
Can’t take Mississippi
Can’t take it out of me
Down to the nitty gritty
That’s how it’s going to be
In the midst of my writing this song my wife gave me a mandolin for a Christmas present. I’ve never played mandolin, but I love the sound, and I worked up a part for the song. Here’s my old Mississippi friend and wonderful solo guitarist Mike Moss’s reaction to the song’s instrumentation: “… the synthesizer thing in the beginning with the mandolin is like Cindy Lauper going to dinner at the Mayflower.” (Love the fried oysters at the Mayflower.)
Come sit stay get down
Always do exactly what we’re sayin’
Don’t think they are one of us
By our will they’re bound
Bring our kill and drop it before us
Lord knows best not make a fuss
Don’t think they are one of us.
Fat cat eats his hat
What we’re told is often a fiction
Change can come it’s in the air
There’s been a good bit of change. I’ve changed. More change is coming.
So here’s the song and video. The two houses are those where each of my parents grew up in Mississippi:
A few years ago I wrote another fairly specific song related to my Mississippi heritage, The Jake Shuffle, about my brother’s and my belief that our grandfather Foster was partially paralyzed by Jake Leg. Check it out.
Please share your thoughts about anything, either in the comments on this page or by emailing me directly at guy@storytownband.com. And please share this post with a friend who might enjoy it. Until next week….