South Somewhere Else

         E                         
It was assumed that the south was a
 thing that took place somewhere 
A
else
        B                    
We grew up in a town that our 
                         A         
parents just found on a job search 
                    E
and liked it quite well
        A                          
Who had so many friends who arrived
                         E         
 just like them so their kids were 
              B
our kin for a spell

         E                         
It was assumed that the south was a
 thing that took place somewhere 
A
else
         B                         
Like the feeling of home was a book
                  A           
 on a loan from a college town 
                E
private school shelf
        A                    
We took in every chapter with 
                           E   
interest and laughter but never 
                      B
quite a sense of ourselves


[Break]
E A B A E


[Chorus]
  A
A dangerous narrative, haunting, 
imperative
E                       B
Led us little kids to believe
         A
That the place we were from shed a 
sheen we should shun
         E                         
Like the salt of the sweat dripping
 B
 down from our sleeves


[Verse]
         E                         
It was assumed that the south was a
 thing that took place somewhere 
A
else
         B                         
Like the sun that went down on the 
                           A 
edge of my town progressed no 
                    E
further west as it fell
Continúa después del anuncio
       A                           
And on visits to relatives couldn’t
                      E            
 quite tell cause our pounding 
               B
heart sank as they swelled

         E                         
It was assumed that the south was a
 thing that took place somewhere 
A
else
      B                          
As if Jim Crow geographies didn’t 
                  A                
haunt all of the streetscapes we’d 
              E
come to know well
                 A               
And not just the old neoclassical 
                           E  
mansions we passed or the high 
                        B
school had stories to tell


[Break]
E A B A E
E A B A E


[Chorus]
           A
I mean the segregate sounds of that 
old college town
         E                     B
Rings so loud to me now I must say
      A
As we worked all white restaurants, 
trash-talking debutantes
    E                        
Our nascent class conscience’ 
  B
obnoxious displays


[Verse]
         E                         
It was assumed that the south was a
 thing that took place somewhere 
A
else
    B                            
And maybe it was which I say just 
                    A            
because we weren’t noticing where 
            E
power was held
     A                   
Captivated, the capitol’s 
                E                  
capitacratical white liberal logics
     B
 prevailed

         E                         
It was assumed that the south was a
 thing that took place somewhere 
A
else
     B                             
Multiracial resistance to greedful 
                A                  
ambitions, cast out in revisionist 
 E
spells
A                                 
Power concedes ‘bout as much as it
             E                 
 leads as we started to see for 
    B
ourselves


[Break]
E A B A E
E A B A E


[Otro]
         A
It was assumed that the south was a 
thing that took place
     E
In a retrograde rendering of 
absolute space
          F#m
As though everything left in the 
world wasn’t traced
      B
By production, subjection, 
resistance, escape

     A
Seen squarely through this 
disidentified gaze
            E
And through textbooks and t.v.’s, 
our modernist ways
      F#m
Could never quite focus, our 
participating
  B                    A      
Renewing, rejecting, affirming, 
            E
negating