Rebels

“Rebels,” from the fine Tom Petty album Southern Accents, was on the radio this morning. It’s a celebration of being from the South, of identifying with the grey-wearing rebels who, still, are part of folklore and mythology 150 years later. Which doesn’t mean there aren’t downsides to that legacy:

Even before my father’s father they

Called us all rebels

Burned down the cornfields

Left our cities leveled - I can

Still feel the eyes of those 

Blue-bellied devils....

It’s great to sing along with even if you don’t identify with the South or the Civil War. Perhaps because its tone of self-loathing is a Reactive reflex. Or the imagery of the set pieces in each verse - mostly about an unpleasant breakup - is what a guy too often feels and remembers from how relationships ended in the past, whether 20 minutes ago or 20 years. None of which explains the similar feeling evoked by the title track, a simple acoustic-sounding ballad that doubles down on what that side of Mason-Dixon means.

There’s a southern accent

Where I come from

The young-uns call it country

The Yankees call it dumb...

There are scenes in “The Last Waltz” where a Confederate flag is proudly displayed, with neither irony or racism intended. Not exactly a surprise for a group known for “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down.” That was only a few years before Southern Accents, which was released in 1985. (Like many of Tom Petty’s albums with the Heartbreakers, it was recorded at Sound City, right about halfway between Rumours and Nevermind.) These days, though, the idea of invoking the South, much less the Confederacy, seems almost shocking. (It probably shows up, still, in country music, not that I’ve been paying attention to what happens there. Or popular music, either, really.) 

Which is ultimately more about history, the passage of time, and the changes wrought thereby. In 2044 and 2054, no doubt, people will look at some of today’s innocent scrawls or pictures or short-form videos and ask with barely disguised shock, “Do they even realize what they are doing, there?”