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Hey Nellie Nellie... it's 2008
Nov. 5th, 2008 05:40 amYES! WE!! DID!!!
I'm going to be downing doubleshots all day long just to stay upright because I stayed up to the concession just to be sure. And there's a song been stuck in my head all week, but I've been afraid to even think it through. (Yes, I'm afraid I'm about to songfic a political post!)
Hey Nellie, Nellie, come to the window.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, look at what I see.
He's ridin' into town on a sway-back mule.
He's got a tall black hat and he looks like a fool.
But he sure is talkin' like he's been to school, and it's 1853.
Race is a huge issue in this country. So is terrorism. And in this climate, a black man whose name was close to the terrorist's who attacked us and who shared a name with a Middle East dictator, ran for President. In one precinct, a "typo" actually had "Barack Osama" on the ballots and it was "too expensive" to print new ones.
He also talked like he'd been to school. And in certain demographics, that makes you an "elitist" and "slick" and unfit to run the country.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, listen what he's sayin'.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, he says it's gettin' late.
Says all them black folks should be free,
To walk around the same as you and me.
He's talkin' about a thing they call democracy, and it's 1858.
Nobody expected him to make it past the primaries. Not against the high-powered campaign of someone who had already spent 8 years in the White House as the spouse of a popular but contentious President.
And then a thing called democracy put him at the head of the ticket.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, come to the window.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, hand me down my gun.
For the men are cheerin' and the boys are too,
They're all puttin' on their coats of blue.
And I ain't got no time to sit and talk to you, and it's 1861.
A lot of people were afraid he'd be shot just for running, like Bobby Kennedy. Just a couple of weeks ago they caught a couple of racists who had planned on making his attempted murder the end point of racial violence.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, come to the window.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, I've come back alive.
My coat of blue is stained with red,
And the man in the tall black hat is dead.
But we sure will remember all the things he said, and it's 1865.
The battle was hard fought right up to the end. But in the end, he not only got the traditional Democratic states. He took Ohio. He took Virginia. He took Indiana. And North Carolina, which hasn't voted Democrat since the early 70s, ended too close to call.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, come to the window.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, look at what I see.
There are white folks and colored walkin' side by side,
A-marchin' in a column that's a century wide.
It was a long and a hard and a bloody ride, and it's 1963
Hey, Nellie, Nellie, it's 2008. And I'm so damned proud of my country that I keep crying.
I'm going to be downing doubleshots all day long just to stay upright because I stayed up to the concession just to be sure. And there's a song been stuck in my head all week, but I've been afraid to even think it through. (Yes, I'm afraid I'm about to songfic a political post!)
Hey Nellie, Nellie, come to the window.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, look at what I see.
He's ridin' into town on a sway-back mule.
He's got a tall black hat and he looks like a fool.
But he sure is talkin' like he's been to school, and it's 1853.
Race is a huge issue in this country. So is terrorism. And in this climate, a black man whose name was close to the terrorist's who attacked us and who shared a name with a Middle East dictator, ran for President. In one precinct, a "typo" actually had "Barack Osama" on the ballots and it was "too expensive" to print new ones.
He also talked like he'd been to school. And in certain demographics, that makes you an "elitist" and "slick" and unfit to run the country.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, listen what he's sayin'.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, he says it's gettin' late.
Says all them black folks should be free,
To walk around the same as you and me.
He's talkin' about a thing they call democracy, and it's 1858.
Nobody expected him to make it past the primaries. Not against the high-powered campaign of someone who had already spent 8 years in the White House as the spouse of a popular but contentious President.
And then a thing called democracy put him at the head of the ticket.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, come to the window.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, hand me down my gun.
For the men are cheerin' and the boys are too,
They're all puttin' on their coats of blue.
And I ain't got no time to sit and talk to you, and it's 1861.
A lot of people were afraid he'd be shot just for running, like Bobby Kennedy. Just a couple of weeks ago they caught a couple of racists who had planned on making his attempted murder the end point of racial violence.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, come to the window.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, I've come back alive.
My coat of blue is stained with red,
And the man in the tall black hat is dead.
But we sure will remember all the things he said, and it's 1865.
The battle was hard fought right up to the end. But in the end, he not only got the traditional Democratic states. He took Ohio. He took Virginia. He took Indiana. And North Carolina, which hasn't voted Democrat since the early 70s, ended too close to call.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, come to the window.
Hey Nellie, Nellie, look at what I see.
There are white folks and colored walkin' side by side,
A-marchin' in a column that's a century wide.
It was a long and a hard and a bloody ride, and it's 1963
Hey, Nellie, Nellie, it's 2008. And I'm so damned proud of my country that I keep crying.
