Most of the songs I’ve written are semi-autobiographical, so writing a silly funk song about nothing was a pretty nice change of pace. I was just messing around on the keyboard and yada yada yada this came out.
I don’t want no heath food
I got my collard greens
Come down to Shreveport
Or down to New OrleansThe bayou’s not in Oakland
It’s not in Illinois
You’re talking baseball
But I’m not taking score
Does this even make sense? It doesn’t matter—I like it.
If we get together
well you’ll see what I mean
I don’t want your health food
I got my collard greens
These next two lines are a direct quote from a tennis coach I had in college who yelled at a foreign-exchange student whom, from what I remember, kept moving away from the middle of the court.
So get back to the middle—
That’s where you belong
Well don’t go breaking no southern laws
With your northern wrongs
It’s always funny writing lyrics just to fit the rhyme, and then realizing meaning afterwards. I like the wordplay of the last two lines, there.
I heard a lot of stories, and brother that’s just mean (oh yeah)
Don’t come around here with your northern dreamsYou keep making plans, you keep crafting schemes (and yeah)
We all know things ain’t like what they seem.