About The Song
“The South’s Gonna Do It (Again)”, is a song written and performed by the Charlie Daniels Band and released on their 1974 album Fire on the Mountain.
The first line in the song is also a play on Grinder’s Switch, Tennessee, the fictional hometown of Grand Ole Opry star Minnie Pearl.
The song uses a clever play on words to promote Southern rock music. The notion that “the South shall rise again” was a familiar sentiment and rallying cry for disaffected Southern whites after the American Civil War. The song co-opts that sentiment, but uses the statement to celebrate Southern rock acts contemporary to the song itself. The “it” that the South is going to do again, it is implied, is to produce additional popular rock groups.
Daniels factually bristled at more nefarious interpretations of what the “it” was. When the Ku Klux Klan used the song as background music for radio commercials for a 1975 rally in Louisiana, Daniels told Billboard, “I’m damn proud of the South, but I sure as hell am not proud of the Ku Klux Klan. I wrote the song about the land I love and my brothers. It was not written to promote hate groups.”
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Lyrics
Well, the train to Grinder’s Switch is runnin’ right on time
And them Tucker Boys are cookin’ down in Caroline
People down in Florida can’t be still
When ol’ Lynyrd Skynrd’s pickin’ down in Jacksonville
People down in Georgia come from near and far
To hear Richard Betts pickin’ on that red guitarSo gather ’round, gather ’round children
Get down, well just get down children
Get loud, well you can be loud and be proud
Well you can be proud, hear now
Be proud you’re a rebel
‘Cause the South’s gonna do it again and againElvin Bishop sittin’ on a bale of hay
He ain’t good lookin’, but he sure can play
And there’s ZZ Top and you can’t forget
That old brother Willie’s gettin’ soakin’ wet
And all the good people down in Tennessee
Are diggin’ barefoot Jerry and C.D.BSo gather ’round, gather ’round children
Get down, well just get down children
Get loud, well you can be loud and be proud
Well you can be proud, hear now
Be proud you’re a rebel
‘Cause the South’s gonna do it again and again