Song Analysis - "Miss the Mississippi" and You
May 2, 2003

Listen (How to Listen)

Dale Connelly: Please welcome our living and loving correspondent, and a man who is a bottomless well of wellness, B. Marty Barry.

Jim Ed Poole: Thank you and good morning. Although I've never met any of you, I care about each and every one of you very, very, very much. (pause) because I've never met you I care about you very, very much.

DC: A bit of distance helps?

JEP: It's best if you don't know anyone too well.

DC: You have a long standing practice, on our show, of analyzing songs.

JEP: Through our songs we can see ourselves and others more clearly. And jump to conclusions a lot quicker.

DC: Prudence and Dan will do the song in question ... "Miss the Mississippi."

Prudence:
I'm growing tired of the bright city lights
Tired of the glamour and tired of the sights
In all my dreams I am roaming once more
Back to my home on that ol' river shore

I am sad and weary, far away from home.
I miss the Mississippi and you, dear.
Days are dark and dreary everywhere I roam
Miss the Mississippi and you

(instrumental music continues under conversation)

JEP: OK, let me re-cap.

The singer is from a small town by the Mississippi River ... has moved away to the "bright city lights," and is tired of it, and dreams about going back home.

DC: Correct.

JEP: And there is someone she has left back there ... in this crummy little river town that she had to get out of to go to the big city ...

And this someone is the person being sung to?

DC: That appears to be the case.

JEP: And she is trying to convince this person that there is still a basis for some kind of romantic relationship between them?

DC: That's usually the purpose of a love song.

JEP: Uh huh. Alarm bells are going off, but I'm reserving judgment for now. I'll let you have it in a minute, but tell me more.

Prudence:
Rolling the wide world over
Always alone and blue, so blue
Nothing seems to cheer me
Under heaven's dome
Miss the Mississippi and you

(instrumental music continues under conversation)

JEP: OK, so she's left the big city and has been traveling all over the "wide world", but is always alone and unhappy and knows she can't be cheered up because there's only one place she wants to be ... the miserable little nothing-to-do town that she left and scorned ... the town she mocked with her big city friends ... the town where the person who is receiving the song ... still lives.

DC: That's right.

JEP: Traveling the "wide world over" ... the sort of thing most people dream of ... adventure and discovery ... she's bored and unhappy about it.

DC: She realizes that this person back in the small town ...

JEP: The same small town where she was bored and unhappy before she went to find the "bright city lights"!

DC: Yes, yes, she now realizes that the place she left ...

JEP: You mean Abandoned!

DC: Right ... the person she abandoned in this small town ... is the most important thing.

JEP: MOST important? The person is?

DC: I think that's the message. Yes.

JEP: Then why doesn't she say "I miss You and the Mississippi?" Why is it the Mississippi first, and then ... by the way ... you? Hm?

DC: I don't know. Maybe the real message is that the Mississippi and the person being sung to are equal in the eyes of the singer.

JEP: As in: I love you, my wide, slow, muddy, polluted darling?

DC: Maybe that's not the message.

JEP: When people try to be poetic, sometimes too much is revealed. It calls for hours of work to get at hidden memories that are the support structure for this twisted, troubled song.

DC: The song was written by Jimmie Rodgers. Who is long dead.

JEP: I'm not surprised, with an attitude like this.

Prudence:
Memories are brining'
Happy days of yore
Miss the Mississippi and you, dear
Mockingbirds are singing
Round the cabin door
Miss the Mississippi and you

Rolling the wide world over
Always alone and blue, so blue
Longing for my homeland
Muddy water shore
Miss the Mississippi and you
The Mississippi and you