Facepalm of the Week: Indiana High School bans “Rocky Top.”
A high school in Indiana decided recently to ban the classic country song “Rocky Top” from football games because its references to “moonshine” are supposedly “politically incorrect,” as WNDU.com puts it.
Indiana High School Bans Classic Country Song at Games Because It’s…Politically Incorrect?
“We have a hard time seeing how we can continue to let our whole school body, student body celebrate to a song that’s about alcohol,” said Plymouth School Superintendent Dan Tyree, who is responsible for the ban.
They have an issue with the third verse that goes:
Once two strangers climbed on rocky top,
Lookin’ for a moonshine still.
Strangers ain’t come back from rocky top,
Guess they never will.
We can tell that the School Superintendent banned the song without even looking at the lyrics.
“Somebody brought it up to me a couple of weeks ago,” Tyree told Fox 28, “and said ‘you guys celebrate to Rocky Top after every touchdown and the song talks about going into the hills and living the good life and drinking moonshine.’”
I might be a tad off, but I think the third verse refers to the popping of two Revenooers and not just two guys taking a leisure stroll in the woods and sipping some after-market corn mash. Now, if you tell me that you want the song banned because it celebrates the disappearance of two Revenooers….OK, and we go now to the Weather report.
And this was the first time I heard the song…incomplete but is still my favorite. It has the “offending” verse in it.
Rocky top, you’ll always be
Home sweet home to me.
Good ole rocky top,
Rocky top Tennessee, rocky top Tennessee.
Once two strangers climbed on rocky top,
Lookin’ for a moonshine still.
Strangers ain’t come back from rocky top,
Guess they never will.
Corn won’t grow at all on rocky top,
Dirt’s too rocky by far.
That’s why all the folks on rocky top
Get their corn from a jar.
Rocky top, you’ll always be
Home sweet home to me.
Good ole rocky top,
Rocky top Tennessee, rocky top Tennessee.
