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What Florida Really Needs: An up-to-date State Song by: Michael D. Kerrigan (Published in the Orlando Sentinel, Sunday, March 17, 1991)
Way down upon de Swanee ribber, In 1935, when the Florida Legislature adopted Stephen Foster’s “Old Folks at Home” as the state song, it must have been one of the few songs around with any reference to Florida, remote as it is. Actually, there is no “Swanee Ribber” in Florida, or possibly anywhere. As one story goes, Foster needed a two-syllable Southern river, or ribber, for a song he was writing; he didn’t care for the sound of Pee Dee River (which was the original name of the song), and Yazoo had been used previously. Perusing a map of the South, he reportedly spied the Suwannee, a small river in Florida that emptied into the Gulf of Mexico. With poetic license and a stroke of the quill, it became the Swanee and the rest is history. Certainly, at one time, Florida was considered the “old folks” state. In fact, St. Petersburg used to be called Heaven’s waiting room.” But today, Florida is a vibrant, aggressive, anything-can-happen state. A song of this ilk just doesn’t fit. It’s time the Legislature put its priorities in order. Florida is now considered a trend-setter — the new California, some say. What we need is a state song that suits all of Florida: from Miami Vice to Orlando’s Mickey Mouse Club, from Jacksonville’s insurance company skyline to the retirement havens of Florida’s Suncoast. One song that’s representative of all of our diverse cultures, industries and aspirations is Joni Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi”:
They paved paradise Just as Foster’s “Old Folks at Home” describes a mythical dream-place, Mitchell’s “Big Yellow Taxi” describes a very real place — the new Florida. At last, here’s a state song that we can all embrace, a song that pays tribute to Florida’s pioneer spirit – a spirit of progress, development and enterprise. Where some see God-forsaken wilderness, others see an opportunity for creating single-family homes, industrial parks and highways. What appears to many a sandy, desolate land’s end, is to the lucre-driven visionary an ideal location for row upon row of high-rise condominiums. What is nature but a blank canvas for creating a better life, a challenge for the ambitious and an arena for multiplying one’s talents? Songs about plantation life and old folks are no longer apropos. We need a song more requisite of our manifest destiny. As Mitchell sang, “You don’t know what you got till it’s gone.” Copyright © March 1991 Michael D. Kerrigan |
