Southern Hand

Oh, you can keep your concrete canyons and your digital displays, We’ll take the piney barrens and the humid summer haze. Cuz a Yankee in the thicket is a man who’s lost his way, But a Redneck knows the secrets of how to live another day. From the skinning of a whitetail to the mending of a gear, We’ve been thriving in the shadows for a couple hundred years.

You talk about "sustainability" like it’s a brand-new word, But we’ve been living off the land and the lowing of the herd. Can you identify a ramp or a chanterelle in the shade? Or sharpen up a crosscut with a file and a blade? We know the art of "making do," the "foxfire" in the night, How to cure a ham in hickory till the flavor’s sitting right. You call a tow-truck driver when your engine starts to moan, We fix the head gasket with some gumption and stubborn grit alone.

When the power lines go heavy and the grid begins to fail, You’re shivering in the hallway, looking ghostly, thin, and pale. But we’ve got the wood-stove humming and the Mason jars in rows, Full of summer’s golden bounty while the winter whistle blows. We can track a buck through brambles by the scuffing on a leaf, And find a way to comfort when the world is full of grief. It’s a lineage of labor, of the calloused palm and thumb, A rhythm of the seasons that the city’s deaf and dumb.

It ain't about the insult, it’s about the things we know, How to make the corn-stalks taller, how to make the spirit grow. You might have the fancy schooling and the papers on the wall, But in the heart of the Great Smokies, that won’t help you much at all.

So go on with your joking, keep your "Redneck" slurs in tow, We’ll be out here in the clover where the wild honeysuckles grow. Doing what you can’t do, with a smile and a song, In the land where we are steady, and the land where we belong.

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You look down from the high-rise, through a pane of tinted glass, Calling us names like "Redneck" well you can kiss our ass. You see a dusty flatbed and a man in faded blue, But there’s a world of hidden wisdom that’s a mystery to you. While you’re waiting for a shipment or a man to fix the drain, We’re reading signs of weather in the shifting of the grain. We don’t need a GPS to find the hollow or the creek, We speak the tongue of timber that the city cannot speak. Oh, you can keep your concrete canyons and your digital displays, We’ll take the piney barrens and the humid summer haze. Cuz a Yankee in the thicket is a man who’s lost his way, But a Redneck knows the secrets of how to live another day. From the skinning of a whitetail to the mending of a gear, We’ve been thriving in the shadows for a couple hundred years. You talk about "sustainability" like it’s a brand-new word, But we’ve been living off the land and the lowing of the herd. Can you identify a ramp or a chanterelle in the shade? Or sharpen up a crosscut with a file and a blade? We know the art of "making do," the "foxfire" in the night, How to cure a ham in hickory till the flavor’s sitting right. You call a tow-truck driver when your engine starts to moan, We fix the head gasket with some gumption and stubborn grit alone. When the power lines go heavy and the grid begins to fail, You’re shivering in the hallway, looking ghostly, thin, and pale. But we’ve got the wood-stove humming and the Mason jars in rows, Full of summer’s golden bounty while the winter whistle blows. We can track a buck through brambles by the scuffing on a leaf, And find a way to comfort when the world is full of grief. It’s a lineage of labor, of the calloused palm and thumb, A rhythm of the seasons that the city’s deaf and dumb. It ain't about the insult, it’s about the things we know, How to make the corn-stalks taller, how to make the spirit grow. You might have the fancy schooling and the papers on the wall, But in the heart of the Great Smokies, that won’t help you much at all. So go on with your joking, keep your "Redneck" slurs in tow, We’ll be out here in the clover where the wild honeysuckles grow. Doing what you can’t do, with a smile and a song, In the land where we are steady, and the land where we belong.

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