In Them Old Cotton Fields

Comments

17 responses to “In Them Old Cotton Fields”

1. 

   Matt

   March 10, 2011

   The Pretenders’ “My City Was Gone” goes “Muzak filled the air from Seneca to Cuyahoga Falls.” I’ve been to Cuyahoga Falls, which is in Ohio near lead singer Chrissie Hynde’s hometown of Akron, Ohio. But I’ve never figured out where “Seneca” is. Does it refer to Seneca County in northwestern Ohio? Senacaville, a village in southeastern Ohio? Seneca Falls, NY? Senaca, SC?

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   1. 

      Mr Burns

      March 11, 2011

      Seneca, Kansas? Nah, probably not.

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2. 

   Rick Nordstrom

   March 10, 2011

   The one which gets my goat is Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing”, in which the protagonist is described as “…born and raised in south Detroit”. As any geographically-conscious Michigander can tell you, Detroit has an east side and a west side. If this guy was born in south Detroit, he says things like “oot” and “dough-ler”, as he is a Canadian citizen from Windsor, Ontario.

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3. 

   Craig

   March 11, 2011

   It doesn’t quite fit I guess, but it’s always kind of bothered me that Colin Newman and co. pronounce the word longitude with a hard-G in the song “Map Ref. 41°n 93°w” (surely the greatest song about map coordinates ever recorded).

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   1. 

      Twelve Mile Circle

      March 11, 2011

      I endorse your choice of icon too, Craig. It’s very unmistakably borrowed from the greatest music album every produced (in my opinion).

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4. 

   Mr Burns

   March 11, 2011

   Wow. I thought I was the only one bothered by that song. I’ve always (mentally) changed the words to “just a hundred miles from Texarkana” … the rhythm still fits, and it doesn’t set my teeth on edge.

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5. 

   Alex H

   March 11, 2011

   Kim Wilde’s “Kids in America” goes “From New York to East California”. East California? There ain’t much in East California. West California’s where everyone’s at. She’s British so I figure she didn’t know. Americans aren’t the only ones who don’t know geography.

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6. 

   Peter

   March 11, 2011

   Mention should be made of Hank Snow’s “I’ve Been Everywhere” with its rapid-fire listing of (mostly) American place names. It actually was a rewrite of an Australian song, which featured multi-syllable Aboriginal place names.

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7. 

   CE

   March 11, 2011

   Another unsolicited example of geographically challenged lyricists:

   Johnny Horton’s North to Alaska:

   Big Sam left Seattle in the year of ’92,
   With George Pratt, his partner, and brother, Billy, too.
   They crossed the Yukon River and found the bonanza gold.
   Below that old white mountain just a little south-east of Nome.

   Upon inspecting a map it is clear there is not much at all a little south of Nome in any direction except Norton Sound…

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   1. 

      Peter

      March 12, 2011

      An especially bad error as the “south” wasn’t necessary for the correct syllable count. “a little ways east of Nome” would have worked just as well without violating any geographical rules.

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8. 

   Hot Rod

   March 13, 2011

   The one that bothers me is Travis Tritt’s “Modern Day Bonnie and Clyde.” The songwriter tells us that they “met at a truck stop, Johnson City, Tennessee”, but then says “It’s a long way to Richmond, rollin’ north on 95”. How does one logically get from Johnson City to Richmond using northbound 95? I wouldn’t think you’d want to dally along US 58 if you’re running from the law.

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   1. 

      Peter

      March 13, 2011

      Maybe not. They’d want to stay off I-81 if they think the cops believe they’re heading to Richmond. US-58 would be a longer but less logical (from the cops’ point of view) alternative and therefore might be safer. Of course if they took 58 they’d probably get on I-85 and would only be on 95 for a short distance.

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9. 

   J. Martelino, Jr.

   August 3, 2011

   Another song that bothers me geographically is The Band’s “Up on Cripple Creek,” coming down off the mountain, down the Mississippi River to the Gulf of Mexico. However, he and Bessie end up in Lake Charles, Louisiana, in southwest Louisiana, many, many miles from the Mississippi River.

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10. 

    Jason Ray

    July 17, 2015

    Thank you for writing this. It’s articles like this that make Google so damn valuable. I just heard the CCR version and thought, “Is Texarkana really only a MILE from Louisiana?” After a Google map search, nope, about 30. This rubs me the wrong way as well. It’s so easy to get something like this correct, why publish a falsehood? Anyways, without articles like this I’d be going mad trying to understand why he thought Texarkana was a mile from Louisiana… anyone ever heard Lewis Black’s routine, “If it weren’t for my horse, I wouldn’t have spent that year in college.” LOL. That’s what it would have turned into 🙂

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11. 

    Mike Massa

    September 7, 2016

    My parents had an old player piano back when I was growing up in the 50’s. One of us would pump the foot pedals so the piano would play the rolls and we would sing the words as they came by on the punctured paper.

    One of the rolls was “Down in Lousiana” by Lead Belly. That’s not a name you easily forget. As I remember it, the words of this line on that piano roll were “Down in Louisianan, ’bout a mile from the Texarkana.”

    I always assumed that the reference was to the Texas-Arkansas-Lousianna border, not the town.

    It is possible that the “’bout” and the “the” were introduced by the person who edited the piano roll to make the words fit the music. Or quite possibly, in my humble opinion, it is what Lead Belly actually sang… except with a deep southern accent. In that case, “about a mile from the Texakana” would come out “’bout_a mile from_th_Texarkana.”

    My parents sold off the piano and the rolls that went with it when I was in high school, so I have no idea what ever happened to those rolls.

    I always sang “the Texarkana” when I was singing along with the radio and always had problems getting all the words in when you put the “a” in “about.”

    Maybe his geography was correct, but his enunciation was not. Who knows how he might have butchered Caddo Parish.

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12. 

    Mitch Pressley

    March 17, 2019

    Kokomo is not a tropical paradise like The Beach Boys sing about it a town in Indiana which is anything but tropical

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13. 

    sion conlin

    April 11, 2020

    I wrote a song aimed at the Japanese market called “There ain’t no apple trees between Bwlch y ffridd and Llanllwchaeran” Only to receive a reply from a North Korean fan by the name of Dai Jones pointing out that whilst that might be true there were in fact several apple trees south south west of Ystradgynlais.
    Many of you may think this comment is a waste of time but let me tell you its hard typing in a straitjacket.
    I to looked up Texarkana after hearing cotton fields. I don’t think Leadbelly made a mistake I reckon it was an English plot.Strange buggers they is…Can’t speak Welsh either!

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