ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, January 27, 1997 TAG: 9701290005
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: DWAYNE YANCEY STAFF WRITER
Here we go again.
We're fiddling with the state song.
The thing about Virginia is, nothing much ever changes, so even if you haven't been paying attention for a while, you haven't missed anything: We've still got a state song we're too ashamed to play at any official function (or many unofficial ones, either, for that matter). And we're still not quite sure what to do about it.
The shame with "Carry Me Back to Ol' Virginia" can be found in the lyrics, where we sing lamentations from "this old darkey" and pine for the good old days "where I labor'd so hard for old Massa."
We've been wringing our hands about "Carry Me Back" for almost three decades now, ever since a brand-new state legislator named Doug Wilder devoted his maiden speech in the General Assembly to an emotional explanation of why he and other blacks found the song offensive. Wilder effectively stuck a tuning fork through the song: After that, it was done.
"To be honest, I've never even seen the music to the state song," says Jim Marchman, president of the Blacksburg Community Band. "I've never heard it sung; I've never heard it played." It's not even played at gubernatorial inaugurations anymore, much less taught to school kids.
And newcomers to the state are mostly oblivious that we even have an official anthem. "We've lived here for 12 years and this song doesn't seem to be very well embraced," says Kimberly Davidson, director of the Roanoke College Children's Choir. Until recently, she says, "I hadn't even heard this was the state song."
It's sure not like back home in Iowa, she says. "Everybody knows it."
But this is Virginia, where we like to brag about our reticence to change anything. (How many Virginians does it take to change a light bulb? Five. One to change the bulb and four to talk about how much better the old one was.) And actually changing the state song, well, that's a pretty touchy subject.
We interrupt this story to bring you this obligatory political update: The state song is a perennial topic of debate in the General Assembly, the musical equivalent of whether to fly the Confederate flag. The traditionalists defend the song's heritage. It was, they point out, written by a black man, a 19th-century minstrel singer named James Bland. Plus, it's a perfectly good tune, they say. As for the offensive lyrics, they can be fixed with a little editing.
But some legislators say even the music reminds them of the offensive lyrics, and want the whole thing done away with. And that's where the debate usually bogs down. The closest Virginia came to doing something about "Carry Me Back" was in 1994, when the House overwhelmingly voted to repeal the song. But the bill died in the Senate, which simply wanted to tinker with the lyrics.
Fast forward to 1997, when the crescendo over the state song rises in the General Assembly again. This time, the effort to do something about "Carry Me Back" comes from a most unlikely quarter - one of the most conservative Republicans in the state Senate, Steve Newman of Lynchburg.
Virginia being Virginia, Newman doesn't want to repeal "Carry Me Back," he wants to "retire" it and make it the "state song emeritus." With that dignified retreat, he'd then set in motion a legislative study to figure out how to pick a new state song.
"I come to this from a different perspective," he admits. He's worried that someday the votes will be there to repeal the song altogether, which he thinks would be a shame. "For its time, it was a great song. It's singable and rich in our history." And those words "darkey" and "Massa," they're outdated, he says. "It's like the word 'queer' used to mean 'unusual' and now doesn't. We've lost a word. Unfortunately, we lose a few words."
Newman has forged what he calls an "unusual coalition" with one of the state's most prominent black legislators, Democrat Louise Lucas of Portsmouth, and he had hoped the stars were lined up the right way for his "retirement" bill to navigate its way through the legislature this year. Instead, last week, a Senate committee decided, nah, let's don't retire the song, let's just rewrite the thing, which puts us right back where we were the last time this came up. At last report, Newman was trying to figure out how to get his "retirement" idea back on track. Meanwhile, his bill to set up a study committee sailed through the Senate by a 40-0 vote on Friday.
Richmond singer Robbin Thompson - whose name often figures in these state song debates - despairs of the whole process. "My impression is nothing will happen until everybody now in the General Assembly shrivels up and dies," he says. ```Carry Me Back' has been there for too long, and the Old Guard is guarding it closely."
But what if ?
What if Newman's bill were to pass and Virginia set about looking for a new state song? What kind of song would we look for? It's not as if we don't have some choices. "Sweet Breeze Virginia," a pop-rock tune that Thompson popularized during his recording heyday in the early '80s, has long been the most obvious alternative.
"Not a week goes by that someone doesn't come up and say, 'that song should be the state song,''' says Thompson, who now runs a Richmond recording studio and appears occasionally in Virginia tourism ads. "I think it's already the unofficial state song of Virginia."
A few years ago, he and co-writer Steve Bassett even went before a General Assembly panel to perform their tune, to no avail. "I've come to the conclusion, it'll probably happen after I die," Thompson says.
Now "Sweet Virginia Breeze" has got some competition from Jimmy Dean - yes, the Jimmy Dean who first had some country hits in the '50s and went on to become known as "the sausage king." He and his wife, who live in Henrico County, have written a song, "Virginia," which they're pushing for state song.
They've even persuaded a Richmond legislator, Del. Frank Hall, to introduce a bill that would skip the search process altogether, and declare their song the new state anthem. "It's a very singable song," Hall says.
Of course, if the state were to set up a search committee, who knows what other songs might turn up? Over the years, other Virginia songwriters have pondered the subject of penning a new anthem. Jane Gabrielle, the vocalist for the Roanoke rock band Radar Rose, for one. "I have thought about it, because this debate has been going on a long time," she says. "I'd love to throw my hat in the fracas."
A rock 'n' roll state song? Not necessarily. Even Virginia's rock singers take a bow to tradition.
"We shouldn't have a satanic death metal band doing it, that wouldn't be appropriate for everyone's taste," says Mike Kirby, leader of the Blacksburg band Yams from Outer Space. "A hip-hop song probably wouldn't work too good. Something a little more on the conservative side, with a Frank Sinatra flavor, or Dixieland."
Gabrielle suggests another option altogether - commissioning a prominent Virginia songwriter to come up with a new anthem. "Maybe we could get Bruce Hornsby to write it. That'd be cool."
Or maybe not. The Williamsburg piano-meister says he's been pestered by state legislators over the years to think about writing a new state song. And he says he's "totally behind" the effort to come up with a new one.
But, he adds, "I've always thought it would be a really difficult thing to do and not have some trite pap. I've always written songs about the guy who's caught in the bushes behind the church with another girl on the day of his wedding, or the girl who gets pregnant and is sent away, or about racism. It's never been the puff piece, and that's what this would be, a puff piece. I'm not sure I could do that. It's hard enough to do a love song. And this is way harder than that."
Staff writer Madelyn Rosenberg contributed to this report.
Jane Gabrielle, vocalist for the Roanoke-based rock band, Radar Rose
"I'd include the mountains to the sea image. I wouldn't go into that whole Civil War thing, to tell you the truth. Growing up here, you're inundated with it. To me, it's old news. I'd get into freedom and revolution. We had revolutionaries who lived here. I think that's something that ought to be stressed."
Robin Williams, of the Augusta County-based folk duo, Robin and Linda Williams
"If I were going to do it, I'd do some research on the state. I would try to find that fine line between true emotion and sentimentality and schmaltz. I'd try to find a really good melody, a singable melody. ... You should probably have something about the beauty of the state, the beauty of the coast, the mountains, the Piedmont."
Robbin Thompson, the Richmond singer and co-writer of "Sweet Virginia Breeze," often mentioned as a possible replacement
"To me, the criteria for a state song is not something where you say, `we need a new state song, go write one.' It should be something popular that becomes the state song. To me, it's something that grows into a state song."
George McNeill, director of Virginia Tech's Highty-Tighties
"It should be performed in the style of a slow alma mater type of idiom. It should be simple, chorale in nature. There's no question, it should be simple, and written in a comfortable range for people to be able to sing it."
William Penn, leader of the Roanoke jazz group, The William Penn Trio
"I think it should reflect the beauty of Virginia and the people of Virginia and the history of Virginia, if you could possibly do that. Because Virginia has a real important history in the development of the United States. I think it should reflect a feeling of the people in general; there's a lot of warmth in Virginia. The style of the music shouldn't be that important, but it should be something everybody can relate to."
Kimberly Davidson, director, Roanoke College Children's Choir
"It should be singable by the great masses. It should be easily sung, easily remembered, with a moderate to quick tempo. If it's for ceremonies, then it should have a heartwarming melody that causes goosebumps. If they did choose a new one, it would be nice if it represented Virginia's past, present and future."
Charlie Byrd, Suffolk native and jazz guitarist
"I'd certainly try to put in how diverse the land is - how it goes all the way from Tidewater where I was born to the mountains. It's very pretty to see, and I'd include that part. Virginia certainly has a lot of cultural diversity. A person growing up in Virginia has a chance to sample all kinds of things, and that's certainly part of the charm of the state to me."
Bruce Hornsby, pop musician from Williamsburg
"Anytime you're extolling the virtues of some institution, it's hard to do it and do it in an artistic manner." He suggests using "Sweet Virginia Breeze," by Robbin Thompson and Steve Bassett. "I think that would be the strongest candidate."
Ralph Stanley, bluegrass legend from Coeburn
"I'd just have to think about it and describe it [the state] good. It would take a little time."
Mike Kirby, leader of the Blacksburg-based rock band, Yams from Outer Space
"No offense to the Founding Fathers and their compositions, but a lot of us find those tunes a little hokey. For example, 'O'er the ramparts we watched were so gallantly streaming.' A lot of people are probably thinking 'What's a rampart?'
"I couldn't feel like I could speak for all of the state. I'd need to find out what people find important so they could dig the song when they heard it and say, 'I'm with that song.' It would have to be open to every ethnic group, every religious group. Hmm. Maybe an instrumental would be nice."
The Statler Brothers, Staunton country music quartet
"I think what would constitute it would be a melody that would last the ages, not anything faddish," says Don Reid (third from left). "Lyrically, you want something that will be descriptive, reverent, and Jimmy's song [``Virginia," by Jimmy Dean] is certainly that. You want a classic sound that everybody could be proud of." Reid points out that some states have multiple state songs. "That way you don't have to get rid of one to have another. Tennessee, I think, has five."
Jim Marchman, president, Blacksburg Community Band
"You'd probably like something that gives people warm fuzzy feelings about the state and frankly, I don't really know any song that gives people that feeling about Virginia."
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