My secret is that I love listening to country music (my friends all make fun of me for it), but I like how the songs tell a story. Anyhow, I listened to Sweet Southern Comfort from Buddy Jewell, and the chorus is just so beautiful.
From Carolina down to Georgia,
Smell the jasmine and magnolia,
Sleepy Sweet home Alabama,
Roll tide roll,
Muddy water, Misssissippi,
Blessed Graceland whispers to me,
Carry on, Carry on,
Sweet Southern Comfort carry on
I’ve lived in big cities all my life, I’ve only visited the 2 coasts (and Dallas… if you count a layover), I don’t know anyone who’s even FROM the South. I’d really love to visit Charleston one day, though, just to see if it live up to its reputation of being the “best-mannered city in the U.S.”
So, I guess, if I have any readers from the Southern states, what’s it like? What are some common misconceptions? What do you love about the South? What do you dislike? Is the pace of life really slower? How does a city in the South (say, Atlanta or Austin) compare with LA or San Francisco?
Well Heeled Blog 
Oh Boy. I’m from rural (as in cotton fields and horse farms are the only things twenty miles around my house) Virginia. I think living in a city in the South isn’t too much different from living in another part of the country in a city. City life is pretty much the same everywhere, except the accents are different. In cities, you find progressive people, more options for nightlife and cultural events, and more diversity (in general). The pace of life IS slower in Atlanta or Charleston, though. And everyone calls you ‘sugar’ or ‘honey.’
In the rural South (as well as anywhere rural, most likely), however, there are still alot of holdovers from the past. I *hated* growing up in the country for alot of reasons:
1) Racism is the rule, not the exception. Our generation was taught in school and on afterschool specials that we were to treat everyone the same, regardless of race. In real life, though, my dad (who says alot of crap but isn’t racist at heart) got invited to join the KKK. Yeah–it’s still going strong. Before I moved to SoCal, my BEST FRIEND from high school told me not to date ‘any of those dirty Mexicans.’ I had a FIT on her.
1a) Why on earth are people still waving that stupid Confederate flag? They like that black people were once slaves, and want to go back to that time, one guy told me as an explanation for the flag sticker on his truck. to my face, he said this! I HATE the homophobia, sexism, and racism running rampant in the South. It makes me ill.
1b) No diversity. There was ALOT of segregation between black/whites in my high school, and virtually no other races to speak of (no Jewish, no Asian, no Latin-Americans…just black/white 50-50). Blacks and whites didn’t mix except in extreme circumstances.
3) it’s boring. This is how cow-tipping and muddin’ got their starts. And yes, I’ve done both. It’s humid in the summer, to the point that at 8 am in august, you have to shower after 5 minutes outside. Yucky.
4) People get stuck there. due to the poor school districts, most people don’t get a good education, and therefore can’t get into a good college. Then they get stuck in low-paying jobs. 90% of my friends from high school ended up having babies and/or getting married within 2 years of graduating high school–if they did finish at all. Every single one that got married then is divorced now. EVERY SINGLE ONE. It’s a trap. I’m the only one I know of in my class to leave the state of Virginia, except for the military folk who are now getting shot at in Iraq. I think when you live in the same place your entire life and don’t travel, it breeds racism and close-mindedness. Rural towns are a mecca for this.
Some things I liked:
1) The relative safety. it was a boring childhood, but there’s not much trouble you can get into, til you become a teenager.
2) cicadas, frogs, and cricket sounds on a humid night. (We had a swamp on our property.) Preferably with a thunderstorm rolling in. The smell of honeysuckle. Very, very peaceful.
No offense, but I hate the South. and I hate the country and the mentality. And i’ve been everywhere– from cities in the South to rural towns, to beach towns in the South, i’ve run into a terrible ‘fear of the different.’ my two best gay friends were stalked, almost got beaten up and lured out to a trailer for who-knows-what torture in Myrtle Beach once, as an example. and Myrtle Beach is a touristy beach town!
I think country songs paint a pretty glossy picture of how it really is to live in the south. The reality is pretty ugly.
I know you run into close-mindedness in any city or area, but I’ve run into MORE of it proportionately when I’ve lived in a southern town–this is just my experience, and doesn’t mean that I think everyone who lives in the south is racist or a horrible person. I don’t.
Sorry for the rant. This one touched a nerve…
I loved country music in college and that song makes me want to live on a farm in the south! On a sunny day driving through rural upstate New York, I used to belt out that song at the top of my lungs, wishing I was driving through rural Georgia or something. 🙂
I lived in TN for seven years and was forever greatful to get out of it. I now live in PA and am so much happier. I think that the first commenter is right that the city is the city and country is country no matter where it is. My real frustration with living in the South was that I was consistantly criticized for my Northerness and my liberalness, but in a gentile way. Like the time I was told that why should he buy the cow when he can get the milk for free in reference to my now husband marrying me since we were all ready living together. Perfect example of my experience in the South.
Wow.
Sense and Stephanie had awful experiences living in the South – while mine weren’t nearly as bad. My family moved to North Carolina when I was 6 (just late enough for me not to develop a serious accent) and I’ve lived here ever since. Not because I was “stuck” (I attended a top 25 university), but because I like having my family and friends nearby, and this is where my husband and I both got jobs.
Now, there are a lot of things wrong with the South – racism, homophobia and ignorance are rampant – but that is true for the majority of “small town America” – not just the South. In the cities you find more tolerant and accepting people, no matter what the region.
I just hate that people across the country give the entire region a bad rap because of the rural areas – have you guys been to the rural midwest, rural PA (where my father is from) or even rural CA?? My husband is from CA, and often says, “There are more rednecks in CA than in NC.”
Phew. I’m going to get off my soapbox. The thing is, I really like living in the South – it’s true…the humidity is AWFUL in the summer, but I love the mild weather, the summer thunderstorms, the lightning bugs and cicadas, the rolling topography, the proximity to both mountains and the ocean…and, for the most part, the people.
I’ve lived in the South my whole life: MS, TN, and currently AL. One of the aspects I do hate are all the prejudices: racism is still very strong here, and women aren’t really seen as equal by a lot of men. There is also very little public transit in any of the bigger cities, including Birmingham. There is also almost no focus on the environment, local businesses, organic foods, ect, like there seems to be in the West/Midwest. Most trends are also way behind here–“looks” take a long time to catch on (if ever) because so few people (in my city anyway) read fashion magazines, etc. It’s definitely a slower world.
That being said, I do like living in the South. I do wear shoes. I do know fashion. I do go to art shows (went to a da Vinci exhibit a couple of weeks ago). If you like warm weather, the temps here are great. The South is also very different from area to area–my husband grew up on the coast, and his experiences there growing up were vastly different from mine in TN.
You must visit Charleston! I’ve never really noticed it being an overly friendly city, but it is an amazing city. If you get the chance, visit The American Theater downtown; it’s an earlier-twentieth century theater that’s fully restored and now shows current films. The customer service is amazing, and it’s a very enjoyable experience.
I moved to Nashville after college from the Chicago area. While it probably has nothing really to do with “the South,” the drivers here are the worst I’ve ever seen. Nashville has a lot of transplants, so the bad driving might be a consequence of a constant influx of people that don’t share the same driving norms, but… It’s really incredibly, mind-blowingly, practicaly third-world bad here.
People in my area also really love to drive BIG VEHICLES. Most of them work office jobs too – they don’t need the horsepower to work on their farms or anything.
Those are really my only two gripes. No complaints about the weather or all the rolling hills.
I have lived in St. Louis, MO; Houston, TX; Austin, TX; Chicago, IL; and, currently, Washington, DC. I’ve by far spent the most time in St. Louis, then Austin is second place (college at UT). My thoughts:
1. Big cities are hectic, and people tend to be seriously rude. Thusfar, I have found Washington to have the biggest problem with rudeness. I don’t know what’s up with that, but people here yell from their cars and are just generally not that nice. Houston comes in second, because it’s polluted and kind of yucky. Chicago’s pretty good, just cold.
2. Austin is in the midst of too much bad change. LOTS of people moving there, mainly from LA and NYC. My friends who still live there are stunned and upset. It’s not so much about the city getting bigger; it’s about people moving there pretending to want to embrace the southern life and instead wanting to really just create their own mini-LA. Not cool.
3. Austin was AWESOME when I was there (99-02). It was laid back, and being a gentleman was the rule. At first this was hard for me to take, feeling kind of pandered to, but I grew to really appreciate that men had been taught to treat me with respect at all times.
4. The Midwest has the nicest, most wholesome people of all. St. Louis is a great, reasonably-sized and mercifully-underated city. I say “mercifully” because it seems unlikely that St. Louis will suffer the same influx as Austin, and I like that.
So, there.
I grew up in the South (Just outside of Asheville, NC) I also went to college in Charleston, SC. It is one of the best mannered cities as far as I can tell and I have lived in a lot of big cities. I would love to move back there. Hopefully one day.
Get used to Wal-Mart as your primary shopping place.
I grew up in Raleigh, NC and am going to school in Chapel Hill, NC. I’ve never lived in a small town, though I’ve visited plenty. I agree with previous commenters that there is a difference between Southern urban areas and rural areas (just like in all of the country). For instance, in the region where I live, we have among the highest per-capita Ph.D rates in the country. Chapel Hill in particular is often thought of as the liberal bastion of the South. Senator Jesse Helms (noted conservative, at times racist, US Senator from NC) once proposed putting a fence around Chapel Hill because it was a “zoo.”
As for country music, I grew up hating it. I thought it was red-necky and ignorant. A song that really got me was “Have you Forgotten,” by Darryl Worley. Honestly, I misunderstood the message of the song given its context. Basically, he was addressing people who didn’t think we show go to war with Afghanistan, pointing back to how he/we felt on 9-11. However, the song doesn’t mention the country specifically and was released at the height of the Bush administration’s push for war in Iraq (and of course, Iraq had nothing to do with 9-11). I thought Worley was making the inaccurate jump from Iraq to 9-11, something Bush has been accused of.
Today, however, I like country music. There are generally three things I like 1)I can understand the words (and the words don’t usually include obscenities) 2)Most of the music comes from real instruments (I hate hearing the artificial “beat” that comprises most of the music in a lot of hip hop and rap songs) and 3)There is generally a simple story or an expression of good, simple values (family, appreciating your lot in life, personal responsibility, etc) that I can relate to.
I am a southern belle to the core. I grew up in Athens, GA and went to school at Auburn which is in Alabama. And while I read what others have written about the south i have to say that i had a very different experience growing up in the south. I love the traditions that run deep through family. While yes there are somethings about the south that others twist and contort to being low or less educated… I think the word ‘y’all’ is a great conjunction.
Examples of my personal ‘southernisms’….
~~When I receive a gift or come home from a dinner party or have someone do something nice for me, I CANNOT sleep until the thank you note is written. Seriously.
~~Just about everyone I know has asked for the my family’s recipe for my chocolate pecan pie and I try to quickly change the subject because we have to “keep that one in the family”
~~I want everything I have to have my name on it. Southern women love a monogram and I now even have stickers that say “from the kitchen of ….” – that is not a joke. They are really very useful when taking new mothers, neighbors a casserole!
The adage holds true for me: “You can take a girl out of dixie, but you can’t take dixie out of a girl!”
Sorry that should say ‘slow’ not ‘low’. I guess I am being the stereotype right now.
I live in Alabama, about an hour away from Birmingham. I go to school in Tuscaloosa (University of Alabama) and I frequently visit Atlanta and Memphis. My home is in a more suburban area, and things can get pretty slow down here – people just seem to take their time more. There’s not a general rush. When I was a kid I used to consider it a huge deal if we went to Birmingham for something, whereas now it’s just another trip. Atlanta is a great place – very fast paced. In my mind I think of it as a “Little New York.” There is always something to do and seen – as well as be seen. After I graduate from college I would like to move either there or Washington DC.
I forgot – it does annoy me when Southerners are stereotyped with the accent, etc. I do not have an accent and none of my friends/family do. I remember one incident in particular where Jessica Simpson was quoted as saying she was “po’dunk Southern” – it made my skin crawl. She and Britney set a bad example for our area of the US! The Confederate flag is a source of annoyance for me as well – but you don’t hear as much about it as you used to, although it’s still visibly seen – have you seen the flags for the state of GA and AL – they are modeled after them, obviously. But I love all that the South has to offer, as well as Alabama History. I love: Beale Street in Memphis – The Bayou in Mobile – The beaches in Virginia – Driving over the Coosa River in Pell City, AL – it just feels like home.
As far as country music goes… I used to HATE it as a kid, but now I think it’s okay. SOME of it, anyway.
#1 comment made by people from the Northeast – “It’s so CLEAN here”
#2 “and everything is so NEW”
I heard both while traveling for grad school tours. The cities of the Research Triangle are very clean and new, in stark contrast to older NE cities like Boston.
But for seasonal allergy sufferers, this area is miserable from March – May. It’s so bad I don’t sleep some nights.
Oh, and we really can’t handle the growth rates, because we don’t have a stable water supply to support it. The recent drought was terrible – Durham’s water supply was so low at one point that restaurants would only bring water upon request. Only after 3 weeks of daily t-storms has our water supply been replenished.
I love country music. Every one is a story. I just came back from a two week trip to Austin. I also been to San Jose recently. I find the pace is a lot more relaxed in Austin. People are so friendly. Everyone smiles and says hello.
I was born and raised on the Alabama Gulf Coast and went to college at the University of Alabama. I loved growing up in the south, humidity and all…azaleas every spring and 200-year-old oak trees dripping with spanish moss are just gorgeous. I grew up in Mobile, which is a smallish city (not a small enough to be a town however), and it seemed like everyone knew everyone else. We were friendly with all our neighbors, played outside til after dark, made high school football games a weekly ritual, and generally had a wonderful life.
After college, I moved to NYC, where I’ve been living for the past 4 years. I love New York too, but I will absolutely move back to the south one day when I get married and want to raise my kids. (No WAY am I going to lug a stroller up and down the subway stairs!!) It is a gentler, calmer, and more contented way of life, compared to here where people just seem to be striving to do more, go faster, earn more, be better than everyone else. It’s fine for now, but not something I’d want to do forever.
One of the biggest differences to me is the way men treat women. When I take trips back to the south now, I am struck by how much I am treated like a lady. Men hold doors, fetch drinks, carry bags, etc. at the drop of a hat. Now, I’m a very independant person, but I really do appreciate that solicitousness and consideration. Most southern guys I know wouldn’t even swear in front of a lady. Compare that to the guys in NYC…ha!
I think all parts of the country have their merit, and I’m glad I’ve had the chance to broaden my horizons and experience NYC. I’ve changed for the better because of it, but at the end of the day, I can’t wait to get back to my beach, backyards, and barbecue!
P.S. I love country music, but I can only listen to it occasionally because it makes me homesick.
Austin used to be known as “The Friendly City” when I was growing up. If you stay away from the “trendy” areas, which as Emily mentioned are kind of being turned into a mini-LA (traffic and all), Austin combines the best aspects of the South (friendliness, laid-back-ness, BBQ-ed deliciousness) with the best aspects of other areas (open-mindedness, diversity, respect for education) and its own quirky funkiness. Sometimes people still call me “Sugar,” but it’s rare enough that it still makes me smile.
You are, however, in Texas, and only a relatively short drive away from places where deep-seated racism, homophobia, and xenophobia are the rule, not the exception. And even in Austin, people mostly support the right to own guns and curse Yankies.
My general feeling just from brief visits (a week or less) is people are welcoming regardless of background, particularly in Austin and New Orleans. Maybe I’m just kind of naive and oblivious.
Austin’s a great place to live – there’s the hot springs, zilker park, wonderful music and free food/booze during SXSW after parties. They have a diverse offering of food including Indian. It’s very artsy, fun and hipster.
But in Nashville they think Asian people are more “exotic” and seem particularly curious as to where you are from. It was a good place to visit but more hokey and backwards. Too heavily focused on country music.
New Orleans is amazing. It’s like Austin – artsy, fun (Bourbon Street vs Sixth Street), tons of art galleries in the French Quarter and Garden District. The music is more jazz-centered obviously but they have big name bands such as Ladytron who tour and play the clubs. It helps that Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie live in New Orleans which makes it a lot cooler and hip. A lot of people asked me where I was from and when I said California, no further questions were asked like if I was from China or somewhere in Asia.
But like the other commenters have said – big cities no matter if in the west, east or south are all the same. They have trendy areas, good food and the latest fashions and boutiques.
I think it’s stereotypical to accuse the south of having some kind of market on racism, homophobia or narrow-mindedness. In fact, I think it’s hypocritical to think in such terms, cause it’s narrow-minded! The south is different from the north, and thank God it is. The midwest is different from the west coast, thank God for that too. You choose where you fit in best, where you feel most comfortable. That’s why you find each city and town to have its own atmosphere. Some are more culturally diverse, others are more racially diverse. Some are closed minded about certain things, others about other things. But to generalize about north and south is ill-informed.
Hanging a big sign on the south saying “racist” is just ignorant. Racism is everywhere, and not just in our country, but all over the world. I know plenty of people who think their city or area of the country is the best, and that they are somehow better than rest of the world, and most of them are NOT southerners. I live in Atlanta, personally. My children go to public schools, and they accept every person they meet at school based on who that person is and how they treat my child, not based on race or ethnicity. Sure, it’s a city, but even in the small Georgia town where I went to high school, I find the same atmospere, especially from young people.
The south has its own flavor, and I personally love it. I don’t support the Confederate flag being flown, cause yeah, we lost the war, but I do feel like the Confederacy was about more than just the right to own slaves. There was a whole society that disappeared after the south lost the Civil War, and it was much richer than it is now portrayed. All anyone remembers is slavery, and in truth that was a small part of what the war was about. Read up on your history, folks.
Sorry to rant, but I get very annoyed with always being portrayed as the bad guy. The truth is much more complex than that…
[…] 24, 2009 by wellheeled *Inspired by listening to country songs while working late **I know, many people don’t like country music. To those, I ask, […]