"The South's Gonna Do It (Again)", is a song written and performed by the
Charlie Daniels Band
Charles Edward Daniels (October 28, 1936 – July 6, 2020) was an American singer, musician, and songwriter. His music fused rock music, rock, country music, country, blues and jazz, pioneering Southern rock. He was best known for his numb ...
and released on their 1974 album ''
Fire on the Mountain''.
Content
The lyrics refer to several
Southern rock
Southern rock is a subgenre of rock music and a genre of Americana. It developed in the Southern United States from rock and roll, country music, and blues and is focused generally on electric guitars and vocals. Author Scott B. Bomar speculat ...
bands and musicians:
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Grinderswitch
Grinderswitch was a southern rock band formed near Macon, Georgia in 1973. Formed from a collaboration of musicians through word of mouth and connections to already established bands and musicians, Grinderswitch became a known act during the pea ...
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The Marshall Tucker Band
The Marshall Tucker Band is an American rock band from Spartanburg, South Carolina. Noted for incorporating blues, country, and jazz into an eclectic sound, the Marshall Tucker Band helped establish the Southern rock genre in the early 1970s. W ...
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Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd ( ) is an American rock music, rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida. The group originally formed as My Backyard in 1964 and comprised Ronnie Van Zant (lead vocalist), Gary Rossington (guitar), Allen Collins (guitar), Larry Ju ...
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Dickey Betts
Forrest Richard Betts (born December 12, 1943) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and composer best known as a founding member of The Allman Brothers Band.
Early in his career, he collaborated with Duane Allman, introducing melodic tw ...
(
guitarist
A guitarist (or a guitar player) is a person who plays the guitar. Guitarists may play a variety of guitar family instruments such as classical guitars, acoustic guitars, electric guitars, and bass guitars. Some guitarists accompany themselv ...
with
The Allman Brothers
The Allman Brothers Band was an American rock band formed in Jacksonville, Florida in 1969 by brothers Duane Allman (founder, slide guitar and lead guitar) and Gregg Allman (vocals, keyboards, songwriting), as well as Dickey Betts (lead guitar, ...
)
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Elvin Bishop
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ZZ Top
ZZ Top is an American rock band formed in 1969 in Houston, Texas. For 51 years, they comprised vocalist-guitarist Billy Gibbons, drummer Frank Beard and vocalist-bassist Dusty Hill, until Hill's death in 2021. ZZ Top developed a signature sound ...
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Wet Willie
Wet Willie is an American band from Mobile, Alabama. Their best-known song, " Keep On Smilin'", reached No. 10 on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100 chart in August 1974. Several other of the group's songs also appeared on the singles charts in the ...
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Barefoot Jerry
Barefoot Jerry is an American country rock band from Nashville, Tennessee. Fusing country music and progressive rock, they have been described as a seminal southern rock band. The band was most active from 1971 to 1977. It was composed of area ...
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Charlie Daniels Band
Charles Edward Daniels (October 28, 1936 – July 6, 2020) was an American singer, musician, and songwriter. His music fused rock music, rock, country music, country, blues and jazz, pioneering Southern rock. He was best known for his numb ...
The first line in the song is also a play on
Grinder's Switch, Tennessee
Grinder's Switch is a location just outside Centerville, Tennessee, which consists of little more than the railroad switch for which it is named.
Significance to Minnie Pearl
Grinder's Switch was also the fictional hometown of the comic characte ...
, the fictional hometown of
Grand Ole Opry
The ''Grand Ole Opry'' is a weekly American country music stage concert in Nashville, Tennessee, founded on November 28, 1925, by George D. Hay as a one-hour radio "barn dance" on WSM. Currently owned and operated by Opry Entertainment (a divis ...
star
Minnie Pearl
Sarah Ophelia Colley Cannon (October 25, 1912 – March 4, 1996), known professionally as her stage character Minnie Pearl, was an American comedian who appeared at the Grand Ole Opry for more than 50 years (1940–1991) and on the television ...
.
The song uses a clever play on words to promote Southern rock music. The notion that "the South shall rise again" was a familiar sentiment and rallying cry for disaffected Southern whites after the
American Civil War
The American Civil War (April 12, 1861 – May 26, 1865; also known by other names) was a civil war in the United States. It was fought between the Union ("the North") and the Confederacy ("the South"), the latter formed by states th ...
. The song co-opts that sentiment, but uses the statement to celebrate Southern rock acts contemporary to the song itself. The "it" that the South is going to do again, it is implied, is to produce additional popular rock groups.
Daniels factually bristled at more nefarious interpretations of what the "it" was. When the
Ku Klux Klan
The Ku Klux Klan (), commonly shortened to the KKK or the Klan, is an American white supremacist, right-wing terrorist, and hate group whose primary targets are African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asian Americans, Native Americans, and ...
used the song as background music for radio commercials for a 1975 rally in Louisiana, Daniels told ''
Billboard
A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large advertise ...
'', "I'm damn proud of the South, but I sure as hell am not proud of the Ku Klux Klan. I wrote the song about the land I love and my brothers. It was not written to promote hate groups."
Chart performance
References
External links
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Fire On The Mountain track listing
{{DEFAULTSORT:South's Gonna Do It
1975 singles
Charlie Daniels songs
Songs written by Charlie Daniels
1974 songs
Songs about the American South
Country rock songs
Southern rock songs