Lyrics I Wanna Go Back To Dixie - Live - Tom Lehrer

Well, what I like to do on formal occasions like this is to take
Some of the various types of songs that we all know and presumably
Love, and, as it were, to kick them when they're down. I find that
If you take the various popular song forms to their logical extremes,
You can arrive at almost anything from the ridiculous to the obscene,
Or – as they say in New York – sophisticated. I'd like to
Illustrate with several hundred examples for you this evening,
First of all, the southern type song about the wonders of the
American south. But it's always seemed to me that most of these
Songs really don't go far enough. The following song, on the other
Hand, goes too far. It's called "I Wanna Go Back To Dixie".

I wanna go back to Dixie
Take me back to dear ol' Dixie
That's the only li'l ol' place for li'l ol' me
Ol' times there are not forgotten
Whuppin' slaves and sellin' cotton
And waitin' for the Robert E. Lee
(It was never there on time)
I'll go back to the Swanee
Where pellagra makes you scrawny
And the Honeysuckle clutters up the vine
I really am a-fixin'
To go home and start a-mixin'
Down below that Mason-Dixon line

Oh, poll tax, how I love ya, how I love ya
My dear old poll tax

Won'tcha come with me to Alabammy
Back to the arms of my dear ol' Mammy
Her cookin's lousy and her hands are clammy
But what the hell, it's home
Yes, for paradise the Southland is my nominee
Jes' give me a ham hock and a grit of hominy

I wanna go back to Dixie
I wanna be a dixie pixie
And eat cornpone 'til it's comin' outta my ears
I wanna talk with Southern gentlemen
And put my white sheet on again,
I ain't seen one good lynchin' in years
The land of the boll weevil
Where the laws are medieval
Is callin' me to come and nevermore roam
I wanna go back to the Southland
That "y'all" and "shet-ma-mouth" land
Be it ever so decadent
There's no place like home