Dispatches from Home – I Am Mississippi!

I Am Mississippi

I’m the land of the Choctaw

The hills of Vicksburg, and a crosscut saw

Dinner on the ground and a muscadine vine

I’m a longleaf pine, and Mississippi’s on my mind

I’m a banjo pickin’ and all night sings

Azaleas a ‘bloomin’ in Ocean Springs

I’m a Gospel Singer and the old folks at home

And I’m the eagle on the top of the capitol’s dome

I’m coffee in the morning and an ole smoked ham

Cathead biscuits and blackberry jam

I’m a Mississippi moon, a dusty Delta Dawn,

B. B. King, Magnolias in bloom

I’m an antebellum home on the Natchez Trace,

A rusty plow on the old home place

I’m Walter Payton catchin’ a pass, Elvis Presley,

Coon hounds and bird dogs and tea of Sassafras

I’m Miss Mississippi and all her glory

I’m William Faulkner as he writes a story

I’m Jimmie Rodgers, the Singing Brakeman

John C. Stennis, a Southern statesman

I’m the Mississippi River as it rounds the bend

I’m Gone with the Wind, y’all come back again

Well, I’m everything good you have ever dreamed about

Hush yo’ mouth, I’m Mississippi

I am the South

Paul Ott copyright 1990. Published by Dixie Springs Music BMI

(Originally posted February 26, 2015)