Louisiana's State Song Trivia Quiz

Answer:

Hoo-Boy... What on earth was that? I have not only never heard a more disjointed State Song... I have never heard a more disjointed song... heck, Multiple Miggs locked in his cell at Arkham Asylum next to Dr. Hannibal Lecter never uttered a more disjointed series of thoughts. What on God's green ball of dirt do the first three verses have to do with the final two? Let's find out.

Let's first look at the opening three verses. They seem sweet. On its face, the country standard and Pelican State song "You Are My Sunshine" seems like a bright, cheerful little ditty about loving someone as much as a sunny day. Parents sing the chorus as a sweet lullaby to their toddlers, it gets played in sappy C-movies, and sad sack young men hum it to themselves as they drag themselves past a window behind which sits unrequited love.

However, if you actually listen to the song, or worse, look at the official text locked into Louisiana state law, it is an emotional trainwreck. These first verses are a toxic, passive-aggressive breakup track where a crying singer complains that their ex shattered their dreams and explicitly warns them that they will regret leaving. "You'll regret it all some day"!?! Are you kidding me, this is only slightly less stalker-y than "Every Breath You Take"!

The last of the first three "normal" verses ends with the singer, dripping with maudlin self-pity, claiming that "You have shattered all my dreams". Good grief, how did the legislature choose such a wimpy, self-indulgent, pity-party of a song?

Then, as if to answer that question and without any transition at all, the song violently shifts gears for the final two verses. Suddenly, the singer stops crying about their ex and starts aggressively listing Louisiana food and geography, shouting out crawfish gumbo, jambalaya, shrimp, and the distance from Toledo Bend to New Orleans.

It turns out this bizarre whiplash happened because the song was popularized by country singer Jimmie Davis, who used it as his campaign song to get elected governor in 1944. When fans tried to make it the state song in 1968, the sitting governor, John McKeithen, vetoed it because the song didn't actually mention Louisiana a single time! To bypass the veto and force it onto the books in 1977, they pasted a seafood menu and a geography lesson onto the end of it and here we have it...A song that would make "The Kingfish" proud!