South Somewhere Else 歌詞
It was assumed that the south was a thing that took place somewhere else
We grew up in a town that our parents just found on a job search and liked it quite well
Who had so many friends who arrived just like them so their kids were our kin for a spell
It was assumed that the south was a thing that took place somewhere else
Like the feeling of home was a book on a loan from a college town private school shelf
We took in every chapter with interest and laughter but never quite a sense of ourselves
A dangerous narrative haunting imperative
Led us little kids to believe
That the place we were from shed a sheen we should shun
Like the salt of the sweat dripping down from our sleeves
It was assumed that the south was a thing that took place somewhere else
Like the sun that went down on the edge of my town progressed no further west as it fell
And on visits to relatives couldn't quite tell cause our pounding heart sank as they swelled
It was assumed that the south was a thing that took place somewhere else
As if Jim Crow geographies didn't haunt all of the streetscapes we'd come to know well
And not just the old neoclassical mansions we passed or the high school had stories to tell
I mean the segregate sounds of that old college town
Ring so loud to me now I must say
As we worked all white restaurants
Trash-talking debutantes
Our nascent class conscience' obnoxious displays
It was assumed that the south was a thing that took place somewhere else
And maybe it was which I say just because we weren't noticing where power was held
Captivated the capitol's capitacratical white liberal logics prevailed
It was assumed that the south was a thing that took place somewhere else
Multiracial resistance to greedful ambitions cast out in revisionist spells
Power concedes 'bout as much as it leads as we started to see for ourselves
It was assumed that the south was a thing that took place
In a retrograde rendering of absolute space
As though everything left in the world wasn't traced
By production subjection resistance escape
Seen squarely through this disidentified gaze
And through textbooks and t v 's our modernist ways
Could never quite focus our participating
Renewing rejecting affirming negating