No Satan in Georgia

Unless You're Highly Susceptible

            Two years ago my home state of Georgia saved the national Democratic Party. Elected two Dem senators and flipped (if just barely) for Joe Biden. Right?

            And last year the Atlanta Braves won the World Series. Right?

            And this year the coolest series on TV is "Atlanta." Right?

            So why do I have to keep hearing Georgia linked with Satan?

            "I am the ONLY candidate bold enough to stand up to the Luciferian Cabal.

Elect me governor of Georgia, and I will bring the Satanic Regime to its knees," says Kandiss Taylor, who is running for the Republican, or ominous, nomination.

            And GOP Congressperson Marjorie Taylor Greene of Georgia says in an interview that "Abortion is a lie that Satan sells to women. He sells it to 'em. When Satan sells a sin, it's not loud. It's whispered, softly and gently into your ears and into your soul."

            Well these women may know something I don't. (Rep. Greene sounds like she's speaking from experience.) But they ought to know this, for God’s sake: Charlie Daniels ran Satan out of Georgia in 1979.

            That's when Charlie and his band released "The Devil Went Down to Georgia," in which Charlie tells about a virtuoso named Johnny who outduels old Satan in a fiddling contest. It is a hell of a record, fiery bow-work for sure plus lyrics that everybody knows the Devil can't stand to hear:

                        Chicken in the bread pan peckin' out dough.

                        Granny does your dog bite? No child no.

            And do you know why I bring this up?

            Because I'm like anybody else, I like to brag about the state where I grew up, even if I haven't been there in a number of years. And I am going to put this proposition forward:

            The state whose name is in the title of the most great songs is Georgia.

            Are you ready?

            Even better than the aforementioned classic counter-Faustian-exorcism number is, of course, Ray Charles singing "Georgia on My Mind" or Gladys Knight and the Pips doing "Midnight Train to Georgia," or just about any great jazz person (or the Harlem Globetrotters) doing "Sweet Georgia Brown."

            And each of these, too, in its own way, is an all-timer:

            Billlie Joe Shaver's "I Been to Georgia on a Fast Train":

                        I just thought I'd mention,

                        My grandma's old-age pension

                        Is the reason why I'm standing here today.

                        I had a good Christian raisin'

                        And an eighth-grade education,

                        Ain't no need in y'all treatin' me this way.

            "A Rainy Night in Georgia," Brook Benton. The universality of it: "I believe it's raining all over the world."

            "Peach-Picking Time in Georgia," by the great yodelin' brakeman Jimmie Rodgers. Merle Haggard also does this one justice, incidentally losing the pickaninny reference that I guess Satan whispered into Jimmie's ear.

            "The Night the Lights Went Out in Georgia" as rendered by Reba McEntire. A weird story, which I won't spoil the ending of -- I will say this, they hung (should be "hanged") an innocent man. Not a racial thing. But try getting it out of your mind.

            That's eight. Real good ones. Try and match 'em, Indiana, Texas, California.

            You want to hear a partial list of people who have recorded these songs?

            Django Reinhardt, Cab Calloway, Hoagy Carmichael, Bing Crosby, Ethel Waters, Coleman Hawkins, Art Tatum, Charley Parker and Dizzy Gillespie, Anita O'Day, Carol Burnett, The Beatles, Ben Bernie's band, Jerry Lee Lewis, Oscar Peterson, Roberta Flack, Willie Nelson, Louis Armstrong, James Brown, Aretha Franklin, Indigo Girls, Blues Traveler, Korn, Beck, Johnny Cash, Mark O'Connor.

            What is it about Georgia? I'll tell you: it's the sound of the word. Overlay Zsa-Zsa, George, orgy, gorgeous and Jordan -- lot of tackiness there, but Georgia refines it out, with a nod toward a sacred river. "Midnight Train" was originally a plane, to Houston! Where's the feeling there?

            Georgia doesn't rhyme with anything, strictly speaking (I know, I know, Lucrezia Borgia and "comin' towardja," but let's be serious). It doesn't lend itself to "my-o-my-o-my-o" or "round on the ends and high in the middle" silliness. It's a female name improving on a male one, and it's where you go back to when you can't make it in L.A. (having come to your senses), and it's a state that hurt Ray Charles but didn't make him hateful.

And Now, Another in Our Spectacular Series of Limericks About Silly-Ass Men

They say a fellow named Fellows

Would play simultaneous cellos --

            Not very well,

            Say those who could tell --

And sort of a tune on a bellows.