I WANNA GO BACK TO DIXIE
Tom Lehrer

Tom Lehrer (vocal & piano)  
rec Jan 22nd 1953 Boston


I wanna go back to Dixie,
Take me back to dear old Dixie,
That's the only little old place for little old me!
Oldtimes, they are not forgotten,
Whoppin' slaves and sellin' cotton,
And waitin' for the Robert E Lee,
It was never there on time!

I'll go back to the Swanee
Where pellagra makes you scrawny
And my honeysuckle clutters up the vine.
I really am a-fixin'
To go home and start a-mixin'
Down below that Mason-Dixon line.

Oh, poll tax,
How I love ya, how I love ya,
My dear old poll tax!

Won't you come with me to Alabamy,
Back to the arms of my dear old mammy;
Her cookin' lousy and her hands are clammy,
But what the hell, it's home!

Yes, for paradise the southland is my nominee,
Just give me a ham hock and a grit of hominy!

I wanna go back to Dixie,
I wanna be a Dixie pixie,
And eat cornpone till it's comin' out of my ears!
I wanna talk with southern gentlemen
And put my white sheet on again,
I ain't seen a good lynchin' in years!

The land of the boweevil,
Where the laws are mediaevil,
Is callin' me to come and never more roam.
I wanna go back to the southland,
That "you-all" and "shut my mouth" land;
Be it ever so decadent,
There's no place like home!





(Contributed by Peter Akers - December 2010)