Here in the Hollers
I wrote this chorus years ago, about growing up in mountain hollers in the Appalachia, a world away from where the vast majority of people grow up. Most people can't even picture what life was like there. I didn't write the verses until all this civil unrest started, and people who live in my neck of the woods started to get blamed for things that have nothing to do with us. So, yeah, this song has a political meaning, but I worded it in a way that it's not very overt or polarizing. It's a true story about Mrs. Johnson losing her land and John finding God and people laughing at him, and the government tearing down all our land and blocking our water, while at the same time taking more away from us saying we owe things to other people for things we never did. "Bear" and "Oak" are the name of holler communities, by the way.
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Raised in the hollers in the '80s
A bunch of outhouses and dried up creeks
No water to the wells, no huntin' the lands
How the hell we 'sposed to eat
They won't raise a building for us to live
They just raze our barns to the ground
Tell us we've so much more to take
Sending men with machines around
We're still down...
(Chorus)
Here in the hollers, the sun might shine
A few hours a day with a cloudless sky
But we got moonshine and homemade wine
A bunch of different ways to fish
Poorer than everyone else, but pure
We're a lot more peaceful, to be sure
Well past used to being ignored
You know, we don't give a shit
In the cities they rage, set fires for dollars
But not down here in the hollers
'Bout a mile past Bear see the rotted Oak
Where Mrs. Johnson lost her land
They said the young crowd needed hiking trails
And they just left her with empty hands
The big wigs in the cities speak
White trash is privileged in some way
Cold, starving babies beg to differ
They're scared to visit, would never stay
So we say...
(Chorus)
John, he saw God on a mountainside
While he was setting snares for food
Said to struggle is the righteous path
City folk just call him a fool
Down here, he's just a good man
Give you the clothes from off his back
But for one he gives, they take two away
His reparations for their past
We just laugh...
(Chorus)
© Brian Hendrix 2020
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