This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
Last night I saw Lester Maddox on a TV show
With some smart a** 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
And we're keepin' the n*****s 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
And they're keepin' the n*****s down
We are rednecks, we're rednecks
We don't know our a**
From a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
And we're keeping the n*****s down
Now your northern n*****'s a negro
You see he's got his dignity
Down here we're too ignorant to realize
That the North has set the n***** 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
On the South Side of Chicago
And 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 n*****s down
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
We don't know our a**
From a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
We're keeping the n*****s down
We are keeping the n*****s down
With some smart a** 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
And we're keepin' the n*****s 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
And they're keepin' the n*****s down
We are rednecks, we're rednecks
We don't know our a**
From a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
And we're keeping the n*****s down
Now your northern n*****'s a negro
You see he's got his dignity
Down here we're too ignorant to realize
That the North has set the n***** 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
On the South Side of Chicago
And 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 n*****s down
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
We don't know our a**
From a hole in the ground
We're rednecks, we're rednecks
We're keeping the n*****s down
We are keeping the n*****s down
Lyrics submitted by yuri_sucupira
Rednecks Lyrics as written by Randy Newman
Lyrics © Warner Chappell Music, Inc.
Lyrics powered by LyricFind
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Randy Newman says that he wrote "Rednecks" in response to an episode of The Dick Cavett Show in the early 1970s (just before Newman's Good Old Boys album was released). Lester Maddox (governor of Georgia at the time) was the guest on the episode with NFL star Jim Brown. Dick Cavett made some rude comments to Maddox and the audience taunted Maddox on the show and wouldn't let him speak. Maddox became fed up and , on air, got up and left the stage. Newman was furious after watching the episode and as the lyrics say: "I went to the park and I took some paper along - and that's where I made this song."
In the linear notes of the album, Randy makes this statement about 'Rednecks': "I thought, if I were a resident of Georgia, I'd be angry at these people, this New York audience and the New York TV commentator. As if they were treating black people SO much better, you know. There wasn't that sort of moral superiority. The difference was, down South racism was law, up North it was just de facto. So that's what I wrote about".