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    Southern Man von Neil Young - lyrics

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    Southern Man von Neil Young - lyrics

    Comment
    Could someone help me with the interpretation of the fourth stanza of Neil Young's song "Southern Man"? The lines are:
    Lily Belle,
    your hair is golden brown
    I've seen your black man
    comin' round
    Swear by God
    I'm gonna cut him down!
    I heard screamin'
    and bullwhips cracking
    How long? How long?

    Now, what I don't understand is more or less the following:
    The first three stanzas are pretty clearly against racism and demand coming to terms with the legacy of slavery. Now I can't quite see how the quoted lines fit in. What does it mean exactly, anyway. I've read a couple of interpretations saying that (white) Lily Belle has an illicit relationship with a black man and for this miscegenation he has to be murdered (cut down). Now, in my view, this does not really fit the singer's call for change (How long?) and his condemnation of exploitation and abuse of Blacks.
    As I am obviously not a native speaker of English, I wonder what other meanings are hidden in the stanza. Could Lily Belle's "black man" be her slave / exploited worker on the farm who has been attacked (nearly lynched) by racists, and his now "coming round" in the sense of regaining conscience? In the direct sense of regaining conscience after a physical attack and in the metaphorical sense of regaining conscience of one's human rights after an era of oppression and rightlessness? In this sense, "cutting him down" could mean help him recover his position on his own feet after having been figuratively hanged by the racist system.

    I would REALLY appreciate any help with figuring out the meaning of these lyrics! Thanks!
    AuthorAmoin22 Nov 09, 00:07
    Comment
    #1Author Martin--cal (272273) 22 Nov 09, 03:41
    Comment
    Well, the cited Wiki-article says more about 'Sweet Home Alabama' than about 'Southern Man' ...
    #2Author KlausB (299369) 22 Nov 09, 10:02
    Comment
    Just an idea from another non-native speaker:

    Couldn't it say that it is the black man who swears to cut someone down? So the line "I'm gonna cut him down!" would be what the black man is saying.
    #3Author Sachs (638558) 22 Nov 09, 11:09
    Comment
    Für mich sind die ersten 6 Zeilen aus der Sicht eines weißen Südstaatlers, der bemerkt, dass sich ein Schwarzer an die Lily Belle heranmacht und er deshalb sterben soll. (Solche Fälle gab es ja sogar noch in den 40er und 50er Jahren, zum Beispiel der Fall des 14-jährigen Emmett Till, der einer weißen Frau hintergepfiffen hat und deswegen umgebracht wurde)

    Die letzten drei Verse sind dann aus der Sicht des Sängers, der nur noch die Peitschenhiebe und Schrei hört und sich fragt wie lang das noch weitergehen soll.
    #4AuthorBill22 Nov 09, 11:29
    Comment
    My interpretation is as follows:
    The "I" in the lyrics is the Ich-Erzähler. That would be Neil Young himself or maybe someone symbolically as someone who embodies Young's ideals.
    In the first lines he addresses a white southern woman:
    "Lily Belle,
    your hair is golden brown
    I've seen your black man
    comin' round"

    The last lines:
    "I heard screamin'
    and bullwhips cracking
    How long? How long?"
    Obviously the narrator has observed something horrible, a beating most likely. Then he laments: How long (must this go on)? These same lines occur in a previous stanza, acting like a refrain.


    "Swear by God
    I'm gonna cut him down."
    In this case cutting him down means freeing the black man. Presumably he's been tied up to something to be whipped or punished. In other words, it's his reaction to what he has seen or rather heard, as he describes in the next lines.

    I don't think "comin' round" has anything to do with regaining consciousness, symbolically or otherwise. But of course with lyrics as sparse as this, everyone is free to interpret anything they want into them. That's what makes some song lyrics so interesting.
    #5Author wupper (354075) 22 Nov 09, 11:33
    Comment
    Also ich versteh das "Cut him down" als umbringen.

    Erinnert mich an Dylans Lied über George Jackson, der Black-Panther, der im Gefängnis umgebracht wurde: "Lord, Lord, they cut George Jackson down".
    #6AuthorAD22 Nov 09, 11:58
    Comment
    Thanks for all your ideas. Of course I had read the wikipedia article, but as someone said, it doesn't really answer my questions and is quite superficial.

    I have the feeling mainly native speakers of German answered so far. Is it possible that English speakers understand "coming round" differently from Germans? As most German speakers won't necessarily know the second meaning of "regaining consciousness"?

    I also had the feeling a narrative change takes place in this verse, with some other person than Neil Young or the lyrical I speaking. On the other hand, there is nothing to sustain this in the way the lyrics are arranged, written, or sung.

    I'd still appreciate more ideas and interpretations. It's strange that you find a lot about this song on the net, but there aren't really any detailed discussions of this fourth stanza...

    Greetings, Amoin
    #7AuthorAmoin22 Nov 09, 14:39
    Comment
    poetic license allows the writer to switch roles at will, and I think that's what happens here. NY relates a story he might have heard or pretends to have heard for the purpose of drama, so the narrator is someone else (the girl with the golden brown hair perhaps?) relating what she or someone else was told by presumably the girl's father or someone else who knows her.

    The cutting down part definitely means killing him, but as is often the case, this seems more of a threat than reality. People like to say "I'm gonna kill you!" and then don't always act on it. The whipping seems to be the alternative "solution" to the killing, but I'm sure if the whipping didn't kill him, it most certainly almost did.


    P.S.: to cut someone down, aside from meaning to kill someone, can also be used in a less lethal sense: to cut someone down to size, to berate someone, but I don't think that applies here.
    #8Author dude (253248) 22 Nov 09, 16:09
    Comment
    From "Lily Belle" to "cut him down" the speaker seems to me to be a racist person (male relative of the white woman?). I interpret the "I heard screamin and bull whips crackin'" and "how long" lines as spoken by a different speaker with a different viewpoint, someone critical of segregation, lynchings and beatings.

    For me (native speaker of English) the "comin' round" is unambiguous in this context: it means the black man has been coming to the white woman's house. The tense of "I have seen" means that it is a repeated action in the past; the speaker observed the man coming to Lily Belle's house on more than one occasion. A physical relationship is assumed and implied ("your black man"). To interpret "comin' round" as regaining consciousness doesn't make sense with this tense, as the abuse described (bullwhips) was not a repeated action ("I heard screamin'").

    FYI, wupper is a native speaker of English.

    *waving at wupper*
    #9Author Amy-MiMi (236989) 22 Nov 09, 23:47
    Comment
    thanks again! I thought wupper was a native speaker of English, that's why I said "mainly Germans". Whatever, I feel the fourth stanza of the song weakens the message of the powerful song a bit due to these unclarities...
    Waving at everybody, Amoin
    #10AuthorAmoin23 Nov 09, 01:22
    Comment
    I don't think the change in narrative perspective is a problem at all. The average listener is used to that sort of literary device and understands it instinctively, imho, especially since the singer uses his voice to clearly deliniate between the two "I" forms.

    The bullwhips harkens back to the time of the slaves, and Young uses it to point out that the situation of blacks in similar to that when they used to be slaves beaten and whipped by their masters. I am not convinced that the whipping and screaming is actually happening, but it is "in the air" as part of history at least and a very real threat.
    #11Author Selkie (236097) 23 Nov 09, 07:47
    Comment
    That's an interesting point, Selkie, about the music, and one that I wanted to mention yesterday.
    If the narrator switches to someone else for those lines "Swear to God..." then yes, "cut him down" would be interpreted as wanting to kill someone, either real or as a threat - maybe by an angry white friend or family member, or the girl herself. Really, though, analyzing the lyrics without listening to the song is a little bit pointless. This is not a poem, but a song meant to be performend and listened to. Often times in a song things become clearer when heard, as opposed to a dry analysis of the text. And I don't understand why multiple possible interpretations of a song is seen as a weakness. Not in my book. Art is not science or mathematics. But whatever floats your boat...
    #12Author wupper (354075) 23 Nov 09, 08:28
     
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