Smarter than that now

So there's this idea I have for a song, but it's so fuckin' convoluted, man. I just gotta make the connections.

So what's this idea, farmboy?

It's this memory this friend of mine told me about the day that Martin Luther King Jr. was buried. He said that the TV was on and the funeral was taking place. And his next-door neighbor, a grandmotherly lady, she came in through the front door and looked at the screen and said "Why are they making such a big deal about this?"and some other comments. And he said he was shocked; his family was one of those JFK/60s families and they revered Dr. King. He had never seen any racism before and I guess he got confused that someone he knew as a good and kind person could be capable of racism.

So, after a long while, he came to the conclusion that she was this person who was, well, old. She had grown up in the Kansas prairie -- it is prairie, right? -- and this way the way she was taught. So, anyway, he tells me this and says "I remember thinking 'We're smarter than that now' and, hey, there's a song title for you, farmboy. Free of charge."

And so that story just churns around in my head like stories do, you know, and it occurs to me: Are we really smarter than that now? I mean, I see and hear racist things all the fuckin' time. And I take the word racist seriously -- I don't just throw that word around. But, fuck, look at the comment sections and message boards online. Read the fuckin' news, for fuck's sake. I mean, I hear racist comments from the staff at the fuckin' high school I work at.

Sounds like a pretty interesting song to me, farmboy.

A pretty depressing one, too. Or, even worse, a preachy one.

I guess all I can do is write it and see how it turns out.