![]() ![]() Drive-bys are an LA gang thing, see, and truckers are rural white Southerners! Get it? It’s so IRONIC!īut the goofy-stupid band name - right up there with “Pearl Jam” and “Limp Bizkit” - turned out to be a false flag. So when I first heard of the Drive-By Truckers, I assumed they were a one-joke band in that same vein, slapping a coat of white paint on a Black genre. (The always-brilliant Atlanta skewered the trend with one word: “Nope.”) You had genius piano maestro Ben Folds crooning Dre’s “Bitches Ain’t Shit,” country jam band The Gourds sawing through Snoop’s “Gin and Juice,” and a this-never-would-happen-in-2022 folk cover of “Straight Outta Compton.” When a dewy-voiced white woman is dropping the full hard-r n-word in a song that sounds like it could be played at a wedding, well, things have gone a wee bit sideways. Let’s talk about the Drive-By Truckers.īack around the turn of the millennium, there was a brief, cringey trend of white artists doing ultra-white covers of rap songs. It’s alchemy that’s as close to magic as you can get in a place where beer is ten bucks a pour.Įnough blather. Those people there onstage are creating something that wasn’t here before and won’t last, something just for you and the lucky few around you. Not everyone who has a Southern accent is an illiterate cousin-marrying racist, but, well, a whole lot of illiterate cousin-marrying racists say “y’all.” It’s one of the many ongoing frustrations of loving the South, the fact that so many people drawling out their vowels have been responsible for some of the worst crimes ever inflicted on this nation.There’s something sublime about the community at a concert, the way that hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of people come together for a couple of transcendent hours, a moment in time that won’t ever come around again, a moment that neither audience phone pics nor professional soundboard recordings can truly capture. Granted, the sound of the Southern accent can summon up whole passel of problematic jackassery. What’s ridiculous is that he not only thought it was a good idea to pander to his new fanbase this way, he thought he was pulling it off! (For the record, if he wins at LSU, they won’t care if he communicates entirely through chicken-clucks.) Kelly pretty much sampled from the whole buffet here, settling somewhere between Leghorn and Gump, with a light dusting of Bill Clinton. “the full Gump.” Worst thing to happen to the Southern accent since Boss Hogg. The Southern slow-witted dumbass preaching corny wisdom, a.k.a. (Make a hack “banjo” reference at your peril, you jokester you.) The Southern cracker-ass cracker, best known as the “Deliverance” dialect. Don’t be fooled by the gentle lilt of her vowels she’s ten steps ahead of you. The Southern ingenue/hellcat, a la Scarlett O’Hara / Blanche DuBois / Daisy Duke. (“Son, you know your taillight’s broken? We don’t cotton to lawbreakers in this county…”) The Southern sheriff, walking up to your ve -hicle with mirrored sunglasses. (“Now I’m just a simple country lawyer, but perhaps you could explain how it is that your fingerprints ended up on the murder weapon…”) The Southern lawyer clad in a seersucker suit, probably sweating in the Mississippi sun. Linguistically, anyone who attempts to do a white Southern accent tends to travel one of many well-worn paths: Going out and attempting to form your own independent sentences? Brother, that’s when trouble comes for you. Repeating words in a Southern tinge is one thing. Say “Go Dogs!” to a Georgia fan and they’ll cock their head in confusion like you’re meowing at them. The double-l in “Roll” unfurls to run straight into the consonant “T,” and the “i” in “Tide” is pronounced “ah,” not “eye.” The “d” at the end is barely a speed bump.Īs for “Dawgs”? Come on, that pronunciation’s literally spelled out for you. America, and all the ships at sea!” voice. If you try to say “Roll Tide” or “Go Dawgs” in a proper clipped upper Ohio Valley newscaster accent, well, you may as well be talking in an old-timey nasal wartime “Good evening Mr. You can hear it clearly in the rallying cries of this weekend’s two college football behemoths. ![]()
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