Alabama 1959

Chicken wire floats in the big parade
 Marching bands and the prom queen's wave
 From an old home movie fading with time
 Alabama 1959
 Daddy had hair, mom was thin
 Look at the silly clothes they wore back then
 Studebaker truck parked in the drive
 Alabama 1959
 Men wore hats and called you son
 Children said "Yes sir, yes mam" ladies called you "hun"
 And the days just blew away like dandelions
 In Alabama 1959
 TVA strung power lines
 Lit up our world with Pepsodent and Lucky Strikes
 And the TVs rolled in black and white
 Alabama 1959
 Football games beneath the lights
 No one ever dared to cross the color line
 Black faces watched through the fence outside
 Alabama 1959
 Don't use that word my mother said
 It isn't Christian, call them colored folks instead
 So I learned to be polite
 In Alabama 1959
 These old home movies, well they make me cry
 Still I bring them out and watch sometimes
 And all those ghosts come back alive
 Alabama 1959