Polk Salad Annie (1969)
(spoken,
with underlying E ~ ~ : )
If some of ya'll never been down South too much, I'm gonna
tell you
a little bit about this, so that you'll understand what
I'm talking about.
Down there we have a plant that grows out in the woods and the
fields, looks somethin'
like a turnip green. Everybody calls it Polk salad.
Polk salad. Used to know a girl that
lived down there and she'd go out
in the evenings and pick a mess of it, carry it
home and cook it for supper,
'cause that's about all they had to eat, but they did all right.
E
1. Down in Louisiana,
where
the alligators grow so mean,
E
lived
a girl that I swear to the world,
E A E
made
the alligators look tame.
A E
Polk salad Annie, Polk salad Annie,
G A
everybody said it was a shame,
G A
‘cause her mama was a working on the chain-gang.
E
+ A mean, vicious woman. + E ~ ~
E
2. Every day before suppertime,
she'd
go down by the truck patch,
E
and
pick her a mess of Polk salad
E A E
and
carry it home in a tote sack.
A
E
Polk salad Annie, the ‘gators got your granny,
G A
everybody said it was a shame,
G
A
‘cause her mama was a working on the
chain-gang.
E
+ A wretched, spiteful,
straight-razor totin' woman,
E
Lord, have mercy, pick a mess
of it. + E ~ ~
E
3. Her daddy was a lazy, no-count,
he claimed
he had a bad back,
E
all
her brothers were fit for
E A E
was
stealing watermelons out of my truck.
A
E
Polk salad Annie, the ‘gators got your granny,
G A
everybody said it was a shame,
G
A
‘cause her mama was a working on the chain-gang.
+ E ~ ~ (with varying bits of lyrics) ....
(Tony Joe White)