It is Time to change our State Song and get rid of this Broadway fiasco of a picture of Oklahoma. We can do a lot better. Our State Song has some real fine lines of dumb in it.
Here is the whole thing. I shall dissect it down page.
OKLAHOMA
Brand new state!
Brand new state, gonna treat you great!
Gonna give you barley, carrots and pertaters,
Pasture fer the cattle, Spinach and termayters!
Flowers on the prarie where the June bugs zoom,
Plen'y of air and plen'y of room,
Plen'y of room to swing a rope!
Plen'y of heart and plen'y of hope.
Oklahoma,
where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma,
Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Makin' lazy circles in the sky.
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!
We're only sayin'
You're doin' fine, Oklahoma!
Oklahoma O.K.
Oklahoma,
where the wind comes sweepin' down the plain
And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet
When the wind comes right behind the rain.
Oklahoma,
Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I
Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk
Makin' lazy circles in the sky.
We know we belong to the land
And the land we belong to is grand!
And when we say Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!
We're only sayin' You're doin' fine, Oklahoma!
Oklahoma O.K.
###
Let's start with:"Gonna give you barley, carrots and pertaters, Pasture fer the cattle, Spinach and termayters!"
Now damn few places in Oklahoma raise barley, carrots, pertaters, Spinach and termayters. Maybe in in someones urban garden, but everywhere else it is wheat, cotton, milo, broom corn, watermelons, (potatoes maybe, but no pertaters) and such.
"Ev'ry night my honey lamb and I Sit alone and talk and watch a hawk Makin' lazy circles in the sky."
Any damn fool knows that hawks don't fly at night. Obviously what they are looking at is an Owl.And owls don't fly high if there is a moon, so what are they looking through, night vision goggles?
"And the wavin' wheat can sure smell sweet When the wind comes right behind the rain."
If the wheat is ripe enough to wave, the last thing you want is rain. Besides wheat doesn't have distinct smell until you combine it. Alfalfa yes, Wheat no.
"Flowers on the prarie where the June bugs zoom"
The flowers are down in the draws, along the road sides, and the creek bottoms, not out on the open prairie. That stuff out there on the open prairies is called grass. In fact our state flower the parasite Mistletoe grows best in trees. And everybody knows the only place the damn June Bugs zoom is around your yard light.
"We know we belong to the land"
If we don't realize that, our bank will remind us. Just ask ole Tom Jode.
"Yeeow! Ayipioeeay!"
The only time I ever heard anyone in Oklahoma say that other than singing this weird song is when a tractor ran over their foot.
"Oklahoma O.K."
Wow, ain't that just fine I live somewhere that's just OK. I used to love to drive my car into California to see my C.I.O. relatives when my license plate said "Oklahoma is OK" on it.
Put all those song writers we have exported across America together somewhere in Oklahoma and let them write something that reflects their own state. Something with their hearts in it.
8 comments:
My home state's official song is even more insipid: "I Love New York!" At least yours has the distinction of having been written by a pair of the greatest songwriters in American history. Ours was written by jingle writers on Madison Avenue.
For the five years we lived in VA, there were ongoing discussions over that official state song. "Carry Me Back To Ol' Virginny" is hardly illustrative of what VA is now - especially with the whole "darkies" thing, which was one reason so many wanted to get rid of it. Living there at a time some of the most reactionary, racist forces were in control of the state, er, Commonwealth, there was no chance of that happening then. It may have in the eight years since we departed from the Old Dominion, I don't know.
How about we do away with state songs altogether?
"How about we do away with state songs altogether?"
Now that would really be against the current trends. I mean, we are now creating State Meals, State Minerals, The State Bird that's Hunted, State Reptiles, etc.
If you want a wierd past time pick up almost any U.S. Atlas and look at the State Mottos.
Just for the record we had a State song before the R&H version Oklahoma!
OKLAHOMA, A TOAST
I give you a land of sun and flow�rs,
And summer a whole year long;
I give you a land where the golden hours
Roll by to the mocking bird�s song;
Where the cotton blooms �neath the southern sun,
Where the vintage hangs thick on the vine;
A land whose story has just begin,
This wonderful land of mine.
CHORUS
Oklahoma, Oklahoma, Fairest daughter of the West,
Oklahoma, Oklahoma, �Tis the land I love the best.
We have often sung her praises, but we have not told the half,
So I give you "Ok-la-ho-ma," �Tis a toast we all can quaff.
A land where the fields of golden grain,
Like waves on a sunlit sea,
Bend low to the breezes that sweep the plain
With a welcome to you and me;
Where the corn grows high �neath the smiling sky,
Where the quail whistles low in the grass;
And the fruit trees greet with a burden sweet,
And perfume the winds that pass
That's almost passable.
I know all about the burgeoning field of official state this's and that's. It's really quite remarkable that official time and money is spent on this nonsense. That's my own feeling. I realize these measures mean something to someone somewhere who spent time and money influencing a few legislators somewhere to get these things passed, but . . . State Lizard? Why not State Fungus? Official State Chemical?
For the record, I do not know what they are, but I do know that IL has a state song, tree, flower, lizard, and any manner of other official things. Meanwhile, the state is going broke because no one wants to do what is necessary to deal with the Chicago Transit Authority, and our legislature and governor are all venal and corrupt.
One minor quibble: They grow lots of spinach and greens in my part of the state. My uncles all grew greens. Tromping greens was a common teenage job, along with hauling hay, at least through my junior high years.
When I think of early Oklahoma history I think of turnips. When they did the land run of '89 it was too late in the year to plant anything but turnips and get a crop. So everybody planted turnips. Think about a society that has little else to eat sell barter or trade but turnips all winter. Turnips for fodder and turnips for father, breakfast, noon, and night. It weren't a pretty smell nor a pretty sight. Turnips dried and roasted, boiled and fried, turnips with this and turnips with that. Hell, I susprised they didn't make the Turnips the official State Curse.
While I agree some of the lyrics are rather antiquated and irrational at best, as a diplaced Oklahoman who has lived much of his adult life in NYC, Chicago, Wisconsin, and Ohio, I can only say that I happen to like our state song... mostly because there is no other state (arguably with the exception of Wisconsin) that the entire nation can at least hum along with, if not sing it in its entirety (which BTW, I only consider the chorus as the state song). So, as an alternative to ditching a great tune, why doesn't the poet lauerate of Oklahoma (we DO have one, I assume!) just come up with some better lyrics.
There is nothing wrong with the original stste song I learned in the 6th grade. circa 1951. Let's axe the broadway crap.
Post a Comment