Chicken wire floats in the big parade,
Marching bands and the prom queen’s wave,
From an old home movie faded with time,
Alabama, 1959.
Daddy had hair, mum 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 ma’am”; 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 colour line,
Black faces watched through the fence outside,
Alabama, 1959.
“Don’t use that word,” my mother said,
“It isn’t Christian, call them coloured 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,
Alabama, 1959.
