In this song, Newman offers a fleeting insight -- or maybe an "outsight," given his Jewish background -- of the American South, from the view of a wide-eyed child, most likely retelling the story he heard often growing up of his mother's return home to New Orleans to be with family during the war. The lyrics are marvelous
-- Her brothers and sisters drove down from Jackson, Mississippi, in a great green Hudsen driven by a gentile they knew, drinking rye whisky from a flask in the back seat, trying to do like the gentiles do, Christ, they wanted to be gentiles, too. Who wouldn't down there, wouldn't you? An American Christian, God Damn! --
The music is lovely and lush as well...The NPR Car Talk guys use it as a transitional piece between segments (and they would ask that we not hold this against Randy Newman). This is a ballad that transports the listener back to a place that was crazy with racism but also magical and absurd and, well, dreamy.
In this song, Newman offers a fleeting insight -- or maybe an "outsight," given his Jewish background -- of the American South, from the view of a wide-eyed child, most likely retelling the story he heard often growing up of his mother's return home to New Orleans to be with family during the war. The lyrics are marvelous
-- Her brothers and sisters drove down from Jackson, Mississippi, in a great green Hudsen driven by a gentile they knew, drinking rye whisky from a flask in the back seat, trying to do like the gentiles do, Christ, they wanted to be gentiles, too. Who wouldn't down there, wouldn't you? An American Christian, God Damn! --
The music is lovely and lush as well...The NPR Car Talk guys use it as a transitional piece between segments (and they would ask that we not hold this against Randy Newman). This is a ballad that transports the listener back to a place that was crazy with racism but also magical and absurd and, well, dreamy.