Lyrics to "Southern Rhapsody"

This was my character's first "hit song."  The background: Buddy Wayne had lived on Baldridge Island for five years.  Although he had become successful and famous in that new part of the world, he still missed home.  He wrote this "stream of consciousness" song into which he compressed all of his good memories of the Southern United States.  I first "released" it in 2002 and it made my character into a phenomenon in popular music, setting up his NASCAR "debut" a year later.  I even had him a record nine Grammy Awards (for one year) based on this song and the album it was on, Love, Buddy.

Part of the song is roughly to the tune of "Where Were You When the World Stopped Turning," by Alan Jackson, and part of it sounds like "All Out of Love" by Air Supply.--D.H.

As I sit here in a distant land

Making my living the best I can

I get nostalgic and I think about home

The siren call of the South I hear

And it reminds me of what is dear to me

And my Dixie home

From the Chesapeake to the Gulf Coast foam

The Sunshine State to my old Kentucky home

This is why I still love you so

And the feelings I have, I can't let you go

It's the Spanish moss and the pine trees too

About Memphis blues and the barbecue

About the gators down in the Everglades

And the summer glasses of lemonade

Oh yeah

A place of beauty, a place of pride

They are feelings that I can't hide

And I live this life everyday

Our history has been full of pain

But when we fall, we rise up again

And we shall overcome someday

Thanks to the loveliest girls you have ever seen

Fried chicken, dumplings and Krispy Kreme

Dreams of stardom down on Music Row

And family reunions with folks you know

At Grant Park in Atlanta, the Civil War scenes

And the Mardi Gras down in New Orleans

See the "Battle of the Bands," hear the choirs sing

And the legacy of Martin Luther King

Oh yeah

Oh yeah

The azaleas and dogwoods in bloom

Graceland, where Elvis lives in every room

Oxford, where writers are the claim to fame

And the tailgate parties at football games

Where peaks of the Blue Ridge and Ozark soar

And sunrises over the Myrtle Beach shores

Fast cars and speedways are Carolina's pride

In whole towns that cried when Dale Earnhardt died

Oh yeah

As I go back to live my life

Full of triumph and of strife

One thought that should remain

Is that the South shall rise again