Revisionist History - Encore: Good Old Boys

Episode Date: July 24, 2025

In 2019, Malcolm just wanted an excuse to hang out with Randy Newman so they sat down at the piano together and tried to answer the question: If you disagree with someone — if you find what they think appalling — is there any value in talking to them? Get ad-free episodes to Revisionist History by subscribing to Pushkin+ on Apple Podcasts or Pushkin.fm. Pushkin+ subscribers can access ad-free episodes, full audiobooks, exclusive binges, and bonus content for all Pushkin shows.  Subscribe on Apple: apple.co/pushkinSubscribe on Pushkin: pushkin.fm/plusSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is an iHeart Podcast. This is History's Heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunselman, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. Bushkin. simplest, and let's be honest, the most selfish reason, is that you want an excuse to hang

out with someone you love. And this was the origin of the Randy Newman episode. I am one of the very large group of music lovers who think that Randy Newman is a genius and that his best albums, like Sail Away or Good Ol' Boys, are basically as good as pop music ever gets. So I tracked him down, actually through his son. Thanks Amos, booked a flight to Los Angeles. And on the plane ride, I asked myself,

okay, of all the million things I could possibly talk to Randy Newman about, what would make for the best story? And somewhere over, I'm sure Nebraska, I realized, oh, it's obvious. I need to talk to him about his song, Rednecks. And so I did. And if you're listening Randy and you want to have me over again, just say the word. In the fall of 1974, the musician Randy Newman released an album called Good Ol' Boys.

The most beautiful song on the record is the third song on the first side. Wade, can I prevail on you to steal a little bit of Marie? Sure. So I love that song so much. Well, thank you very much. You look like a princess, a knight in mid. With your hair piled up high, I will never forget. My name is Malcolm Gladwell. You're listening to Revisionist History, my podcast about things overlooked and misunderstood. This episode is about Randy Newman's Good Old Boys,

one of the most remarkable albums of its era. I listened to it for the first time years ago. But then I happened to listen to it again very recently and realized that Good Old Boys is not an album you can hear just once and hope to do it justice. Because it's not just remarkable, it's unsettling. I don't think an album like this could be made today. And by the end of this episode, I suspect you'll agree with me. I decided to go to California, sit down with Randy Newman,

and create a listener's guide to one of the most perplexing works of music that I have ever encountered. I saw you and I always will love you. Newman is in his 70s, still writing music, tall and slightly intimidating. He's Hollywood royalty. His uncle Alfred was a composer who was nominated for an Academy Award 44 times, won nine times. Newman has had a second career writing for the movies as well. nominated for an Academy Award 44 times, won nine times. Newman has had a second career writing for the movies as well, like You've Got a Friend in Me for Toy Story. Newman is unusual among songwriters because he writes in character.

And the narrator of Good Old Boys is a creation of Newman's. He's called Johnny Cutler, a steelworker from Birmingham, Alabama, 30 years old. The song Marie is about Johnny Cutler coming home late after a night out with the boys and gazing, love struck, at his sleeping wife. I like the idea very much about being inarticulate without, that's not the right word, inarticulate, but being unable to have the words unless you drink something.

You know, I can't say this to you, and maybe to lack the ability to say those kind of words. But he's, the fact that he has been drinking, and you realize he can only say what he's saying because he's drunk and because she's asleep. Yeah. That's true, yeah. But that even, that makes me humanizes him and even more.

I sort of feel so sorry. He certainly loves her. I mean, it would seem that that isn't drink, but it might be. Is this a good guy? And my answer to that is I don't know. I mean, I'm suspicious of this, oh, I'm drunk right now, baby,

but when I'm awake, I might knock this shit out of you sometime. Randy Newman wrote Marie, he created Johnny Cutler. He dreamt up a beautiful love song for him, but he doesn't know if he understands him or even if he likes him. As if Johnny Cutler came from his imagination but is now somehow independent of it. It makes you wonder who's in charge of this song. Sometimes I'm crazy, but I guess you know.

But I guess you know I'm weak and I in trouble darling I just turn away but will love you, Marie. The story behind Good Old Boys begins with a man named Lester Maddox. Maddox was governor of Georgia from 1967 to 1971. Now he's mostly forgotten, but in his day, he was notorious. I think you're supposed to act for real. I don't look at myself as one of the very smart people. So I try to act like Lester Maddox, like inside I feel and think and believe. Maddox grew up in the Depression in Atlanta. His father was an alcoholic.

My dad never made hardly any money. We, at times we didn't even have a bathroom in the house. We had four rooms and a path, rather than four rooms and a bath. We didn't have electricity. Maddox dropped out of high school, got a job as a steelworker to help support his five younger siblings, married his childhood sweetheart, Virginia,

and after the war, he started a diner near Georgia Tech. The house specialty was skillet-fried chicken. He called his place the Pickrick. So I wanted a name no one else had. And I came upon the name Pick Wick. And I found out really that Wick doesn't mean anything except what you know it to be. Wick.

That's what Webster will even tell you, that. Wick. And someone had already used the name Pick That's what Webster will even tell you that. Wick. And someone had already used the name Pickwick in England. So I couldn't use that. So it was about three o'clock one morning. I'd been working on it for weeks. Maddox was one of those people who you can't do a cartoon version of because he already looks like a cartoon version of himself. He's skinny with an oversized head, bald dome, black plastic glasses, always in a black suit, moves with a kind of loose-limbed floppiness, like a clown.

There are so many oral history interviews with lusdromatics floating around the state of Georgia that he must have spent as many hours reminiscing about his time as governor as he actually spent serving as governor. The man liked to talk. as he actually spent serving as governor. The man liked to talk. See, to pick means to facetiously to pick out, to choose, to select. And Rick means to pile up, to heap, or to mass. So I named my restaurant Pick Rick and said if you'd pick Nick, if you'd pick Rick and pick it out, we would Rick it up. And we would, we did. And that's why it was named Pickrick. I've never heard anything else be named Pickrick.

Maddox advertised the Pickrick in the Saturday edition of the Atlanta Journal, in a column with the title Pickrick Says. Lots of one-liners and Maddoxisms, like the 1950s version of tweets. I talked about Christmas, I talked about marriage, I talked about the monkey house at Grant Park, I talked about weather, I talked about the monkey house at Grant Park. I talked about weather. I talked about fishing and my ads. But soon his column, Pickrick says, becomes more and more political.

Because this is Atlanta in the mid 1950s, one of the birthplaces of the civil rights movement. And Pickrick is a 10 minute drive from Auburn Avenue, where Martin Luther King and Andrew Young and Vernon Jordan and everyone else are starting to stir things up. And Lester Maddox is not at all happy with that. He's a segregationist. And the more strident Maddox gets in his weekly ads, the more popular Pickrick Says becomes. People start buying the Atlanta Journal on Saturday just to read what Maddox is up to.

Maddox decides to run for mayor of Atlanta. He has no organization, no money. He drives himself around, and he loses, but the race is closer than you'd think. So he runs again and loses, and runs a third time and loses. But then the wave of desegregation protests hits Atlanta in the early 1960s. The public schools are integrated first, then the lunch counters, then the restaurants. And since the Pickrick restaurant does not admit black people, the civil rights protesters come knocking.

Well, the first time I was about four whites and three blacks came in. And Virginia and I were about to eat our lunch on Saturday afternoon. They told me what they were going to do and I told them you're not going to do any such things. What they were going to do was eat a Pickrick with the television cameras as witness. I said, you never been here before, you just want to fuss and fight. So I grabbed two of them. I think one of them was John Lewis or Brown or somebody. And I just about had them out the door when they happened to

remember they're supposed to lay down on the floor. If they hadn't thought about that, I'd had them both out. And they got on the floor, and I couldn't drag them, so I called my black employees out the kitchen. And I said, these people are trying to destroy our business, they don't want to eat with us, they just want to create a problem. They've got the television, radio, and everyone with them. And I said, I'm going to give you $10 for each one of them you throw out in the next 30 seconds. Maddox's employees threw them out, but the protesters came back.

This time, Maddox met them at the door, with the television cameras rolling and a crowd starting to gather. This is my property. You know it. I own this property. You're not going to ever eat here now. You won't go to my business. What is the court saying to Maddox?

I said you're not going to ever eat here now. There's Maddox in front of the Pickrick with his black suit and bald head, protesters shouting, cameras all around. He's in heaven. I'll use axe handles, I'll use guns, I'll use paint, I'll use my fists, I'll use my customers, I'll use my employees, I'll use anything at my disposal. This property belongs to me, my wife and my children. It doesn't belong to anybody else.

I'll throw out a white one or a black one or a red-headed one or a bald-headed one. It doesn't make to anybody else. I'll throw out a white one or a black one or a red-headed one or a bald-headed one. It doesn't make any difference. Maddox gets hauled into court because the Civil Rights Act has been passed and what he's doing is illegal. He's given a choice, integrate or shut his doors. And he decides to shut the Pickrick. One of the most popular and successful restaurants

in Atlanta, the business that he has spent his lifetime building that made him famous. And to every Southerner angry at the way the world is turning, he becomes a hero. A friend says to him, you know, maybe you should run for governor. And Maddox says, okay. And in 1966, he wins. A white nationalist in the hospitality business who came to public attention writing pithy politically-charged statements in a widely-read media forum, runs against the political establishment

and pulls off an upset victory. And by the way, it's a very close race. Maddox doesn't actually get as many votes as his opponent, but he wins when the election is thrown to the legislature. Oh, and a huge part of Maddox's rhetoric is how the media can't be trusted. He's constantly accusing newspapers of lying about him. In fact, in the corner of his official governor's portrait, there's a little table with a dead fish on it, wrapped in a copy of the Atlanta Journal.

A white nationalist in the hospitality business who wrote pithy statements on a media platform, runs against the political establishment, accuses the news media of running fake news about him, doesn't get as many votes as his opponent, and nonetheless takes over the highest executive office. I mean, when does that ever happen? Maddox serves four years, has to step down because of term limits. Jimmy Carter takes over as governor of Georgia,

as the state, you might say, returns to its senses. And Maddox consoles himself with running for and winning the job of lieutenant governor. He is well on his way to obscurity. And then he gets a call from New York, from the Dick Cavett show, the great late-night talk show of the 1970s. They want him as a guest. That's when we return.

This is history's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone. Including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelmann, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. In America you get full deed

You won't have to run through the jungle and scuff up your feet The first Randy Newman song I ever heard was Sail Away. You just sing about Jesus and drink wine all day. It's great to be an American. Sail Away is the title track of the album Randy Newman made right before he wrote Good Old Boys. I was a kid when I first heard it, and I had the same experience I would later have

with Newman's other songs. I didn't get it at first. I'm not sure I even paid attention to the words. I just loved how grand it was. Ain't no lion or tiger, ain't no mama snake. But then I got a little older, and as I heard sail away, I said, wait a minute. Everybody is as happy as a man can be. Climb aboard little wag, sail away with me.

Wag, really offensive British colonial slang for someone who's not white. It's the N word, basically. I noticed some interesting story at Behind Sail Away, the song. Oh, it was a guy was going to make a movie and he was going to give 10 minutes to five or six pop people. Van Morrison, I remember, and Hendrix, to do a 10-minute thing. And I came up with this thing. It had sort of a sea shanty before it, you know, very Irish kind of yo-ho there.

And then this guy would be standing in a clearing in the jungle and singing this song. And that was what I was going gonna do with my 10 minutes. Randy Newman wrote a song about an American slave trader standing somewhere in West Africa, giving his sales pitch to potential recruits. Come to America. You're gonna love this little cotton plantation that I've lined up for you.

Ain't no lion or tiger, ain't no momma snake. Just a sweet watermelon in the book we take, you know. It's a nose laugh. Yeah. The character is so kind of outrageous. Yeah. But we're not laughing along with him. We're horrified by him. I mean, it's...

Yeah, but people laugh at that in a nervous way, at the watermelon joke and sit around and think about Jesus, drink wine all day. Now, there's a way to do that song so that it's not so shocking. Like the cover version done later the same year by Bobby Darin, who was one of the biggest pop stars of the 1960s. Won't have to run through the jungle. Bobby Darin is happy, yeah. Come to a miracle little one, you know, they got rid of the wog. Oh, he did. Oh my God.

But that's like blasphemy. Climb aboard little one, sail away with me. In Bobby Darin's version, the line, climb aboard little wog, sail away with me, which is crucial in establishing how vile the narrator is, becomes climb aboard little one, sail away with me. I'm sorry, I can't get past this so quickly. That's unbelievable.

That he did a happy version? Yes. It's this. It isn did a happy version? Yes. It's this... It isn't. There it is. The thing is, Newman liked Bobby Darin. He knew him and he didn't know what to think. I mean, there is a world of difference between Wog and One. Also, if I'm not mistaken, Bobby Darin substitutes the words mamba snake with mama snake. Ain't no lions and tigers and no nurturing mama snake. You know he was, I like to do that. And it's like come to America, you know.

Come to America. But this is, this song is like this. He's not a dumb guy either. This song is like a, it is a wallop. It is emotional wallop. It is a searing song about the darkest moment in America's past. It's a jaw drop, it's like springtime for Hitler.

Little one, I'm bored little one, come away with me. You know, just was so bright, his showbius instincts couldn't restrain himself. How did you feel when you first heard that version? I felt, you know, oh my Jesus Christ. That was it. The original intention of Sail Away was to make the listener uncomfortable.

Newman takes a familiar figure, a salesman, an entrepreneur, a patriot, and gives him a rollicking sea shanty. But then he forces you to acknowledge that underneath all that, there lurks a monster. Bobby Darin chickened out. He couldn't do it. He didn't want us to be uncomfortable.

And so, Wog became one, and Sail Away became a glorified nursery rhyme. I don't mean to single Bobby Darin out because I think that most of us take the easy path in these situations too. But the particular genius of Randy Newman is that he won't do that. He can't. The Dick Cavett Show! So it's 1970. Lester Maddox gets a call from Dick Cavett. Come on our show. He flies to New York.

And who tunes in that night? Randy Newman. Ladies and gentlemen, Dick Cavett. Dick Cavett is a year into his legendary late-night show on ABC, up against Johnny Carson's tonight show. Cavett's show was like a highlight reel of the 1970s. He did the greatest ever interview with Jimi Hendrix. Groucho Marx was a regular.

So was Muhammad Ali. He once had Salvador Dali on the same show as the legendary pitching great Satchel Page. The famous debate between Gore Vidal and Norman Mailer? That was on Dick Cavett. Listen, we have a very good show tonight and I want to move right into it. An excellent show, I think. I don't know. How do I know? I haven't seen it. It might be a big dud. Why do people say that at the beginning of a show? Cavett looks like Paul Newman's baby brother. No more than five foot six, impish, big polka dotted tie.

His first guest is a woman named Alice Gray, an entomologist from the American Museum of Natural History. Cat eyeglasses, hair in a bun, who brings a box full of cockroaches to the set. What can we do about them? What can we learn about them? Are they our friends? No, they're not exactly our friends, but they are certainly our companions in all our... all our doings. And I'm rather fond of them. They have a distinguished lineage.

How many of us could meet our ancestors of 300 million years ago and recognize them? The cockroaches can. They go back that far? They go back that far. That's older than the dinosaurs. Twice as old as the dinosaurs. All the way back to the Cole Age. They were already recognizably cockroaches. That's amazing. It's always the people you don't like who are the last to leave, isn't it?

How true. They'll be here long after we have quitted this Earth, I'm sure. Cavett does a good ten minutes on cockroaches. Are these your cockroaches or some of ours? The cockroach lady finally leaves the stage and then... My next guest tonight is Governor Lester Maddox. Out comes Maddox, the gleaming bald head, the black suit? Governor Maddox, I still call you governor, don't I?

Call me most anything you want to, everybody else does. Have yourself, Dick. Have you ever followed bugs before? Yes, a few moments ago on your program, sir. That's the only time. That's the only time? God, I love Dick Cavett. They shake hands, they take their seats,

rust-colored swivel loungers atop a gray shag carpet. Cavett shows the audience a photograph of Maddox holding his axe handle outside the Pickrick restaurant, and Maddox then corrects him and says, no, it's not an axe handle, it's a pick handle, and goes off on one of his long endless digressions about the meaning of the Pickrick. The pick denotes hard work and we had in the restaurant some of these pick handles

two kegs of them by a big old fireplace where we burned hickory wood. There were six of them in each of the kegs and they were dark red because that was the look something similar to a chicken leg a pick handle does. Not like the axe handle that the news media talks about. And Cavett, who must be wondering what on earth simply says, Well I've certainly learned a lot. Cavett brings on his next guest, the football player Jim Brown, then one of the most famous professional black athletes in the country.

Brown settles down next to Maddox, who is literally half his size, and gives him a polite smile. And Cavett says to the two of them, Do you feel separate but equal? I realize that's 1960s civil rights humor, but I still think it's hilarious. Maddox turns to Brown and says, I thought

you was the singer. He thought Jim Brown was James Brown. He then volunteers his personal definition of what being a segregationist really means. A segregationist is a person that loves his race enough or other races enough, has enough of racial pride and integrity to want to preserve them. And I think a racist is one that doesn't care enough for his race or another race to whether they would, don't care whether they're amalgamated or destroyed or not. Amalgamated? Good Lord. Now think about this for a moment.

Maddox is no longer governor. Georgia has come to its senses an elected nice, safe, modern, non-racist Jimmy Carter. Maddox is a footnote. So what point is there in having him on a mainstream talk show like Dick Cavett? The magazine where I work, The New Yorker, had a case like this recently. Donald Trump's Svengali Steve Bannon was invited to speak at the magazine's annual literary festival. And everyone flipped out. The New Yorker's writers took to Twitter, a bunch of high-profile celebrity invitees

to the festival dropped out. And the argument that was made about Bannon is an argument that could as easily had been applied to Maddox years ago. What's the point of giving someone like that a platform? I mean, what could possibly be learned from listening to them talk? And sure enough, what happens over the course of the next hour of the Dick Cavett show?

Exactly what you would think. I think what we're really talking about in this country is economic development of black people. At one point, Jim Brown says something thoughtful and reasonable, that he thinks the priority for black people ought to be economic development. And Maddox jumps on him. Economic development for all people. Well, we're talking about underprivileged people. How come you're just black people? How come you're just going to do it for black people?

How come you don't want to do it for white people? I'll tell you why. I'll tell you why. How come you don't want to do it for everybody? How come you're always black people? You're talking about all people. Can I give you an answer? Do you mind? Go ahead. If you're ready, I'll give you an answer? I think we understand the question. Can I give you an answer? Do you mind? Oh, go ahead. If you're ready, I'll give you time.

Okay, Governor. What I'm really saying is that there are some people that have suffered in this country, poor people generally, but let's say that we have various ethnic groups in this country that have attained a certain kind of equality. Black people are more or less, along with the Indians,

on the last rung of the ladder. Can I finish, Governor? Boy. Can I finish Governor? Can I finish? Do you mind? Now what I'm really saying is that I feel that the way to bring about equality of black people in this system is through economic... What about equality of white people? I won't interrupt you every time you keep calling black people. What about equality of all people? If you're interrupting the Governor, I can't talk to you.

Then Maddox starts going on and on about all the things he's done for black people in the state of Georgia. And Jim Brown turns to him with genuine curiosity and asks if he's had any blowback from white bigots. Do you have any problems with the bigots in the South? Have any problems with that? From the white bigots because you did so much for the black man. Which is kind of a great question.

Because if Maddox has, in fact, been this great friend of black people, then you'd think he would have angered all the hardcore segregationists and everyone else who was opposed to the civil rights movement. Right? Mr. Brown asked your governor, Maddox, if you'd had any trouble from your white admirers for the fact that you have done some things for... He didn't say admirers, sir. No, he said bigots, isn't that right?

Well, why didn't you say it like he said? You have me there. Why didn't you say it He didn't say admirers, sir. No, he said bigots. Well, why didn't you say it like he said? You have me there. Why didn't you say it? Now, see that one I'm talking about, Dick? I do see it, yes. You take words and push them around and you mislead the people in the audience and all. You ought to start being honest, all of you, with your words and what you're saying to

people. You said admirers and he said bigots. A lot of differences there. The last half of the show is just Maddox getting more and more agitated, Dick Cavett trying to calm him down, and Jim Brown looking over at Maddox like he's a misbehaving child. Maddox asks Cavett to apologize. Cavett refuses.

The audience makes astonished noises. Maddox stands up and starts to walk off the stage. Cavett says, come on, sit down. Maddox says, I'll sit down when you apologize. So Cavett says, If I called any of your admirers bigots who are not bigots, I apologize. This is insane.

What was Dick Cavett thinking inviting this guy in his show? Why don't you apologize to people, George, if those friends of mine are calling them bigots? I think I may... Either you do it or I'm going to leave now, dick. Which way do you want me to go? Wait a minute. Wait a minute.

Please don't leave. I'd like this. Well, you apologize to people in Georgia. And he owes them an apology too. The only bigots that I'm... Oh, wait. Oh, wait. Oh, wait.

Oh, wait. Maddox gives Cavett an ultimatum. One minute to take it back or he'll walk out for good. At which point Jim Brown pipes up, wait, what about me? How much time do I have? It's a circus. I would say that I phrased the question in a way that was not exactly accurate in the sense that he did say bigots.

Have any white bigots been upset because you have done certain things for the blacks? But you came back and said my admirers, and you haven't apologized yet and you got 15 seconds. All right, now let me use those 15 seconds. I apologize for suggesting that a bigot would be the way of characterizing all of your admirers. No sir. Wait a minute, wait a minute. There's more time. Good night sir. And less dramatic storms off the set.

Oh, oh, and I haven't even mentioned that the writer Truman Capote then shows up. He's then at the height of his celebrity, tiny, fastidious, wearing purple tinted round sunglasses. You know, curiously enough, I had a cousin who lived in Atlanta that I went to visit and who took me to this restaurant that he ran that was called Pick-A-Rib or something like that. Pick-A-Rib. Well, it was called Pick-A-Rib, Nick-A-Rib, something like that. And he was always at the door with guns, you know, to keep any sort of Negroes out of the

restaurant. But I went there with his cousin of mine because it was near the campus, the college campus. And it wasn't bad, but it wasn't finger-licking good. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The whole thing is so bananas that Cavett feels a need

to apologize to his audience. I'm sorry the governor has left. I went outside just during the break and he's out there with his hat and coat on and I asked him if he would please come back and use the last minutes to say whatever he would have to say this, and I hope I don't feel, it doesn't come off sounding, I don't know what, but I found him in spite of the fact that I would probably despise his feelings about segregation if I were actually clear on what they are. A likable man, would anyone go along with this? Would you agree?

No. The audience is not having this? Would you agree? No. The audience is not having it. Why is it? What? I'm back down. I'm not backing down. Shut up. I'll tell you when I'm backing down.

We'll be back after this. Good, good. It was a farce. What was the point? Except to allow a segregationist to play the victim. What good is there in giving someone like that a platform, except Randy Newman was watching, whose imagination has a mind of its own? This is history's heroes. People with purpose, brave ideas, and the courage to stand alone, including a pioneering surgeon who rebuilt the shattered faces of

soldiers in the First World War. You know, he would look at these men and he would say, don't worry, Sonny, you'll have as good a face as any of us when I'm done with you. Join me, Alex von Tunzelmann, for History's Heroes. Subscribe to History's Heroes wherever you get your podcasts. So were you a regular Dick Cavett watcher in those years? Not that I recall. I was, but I would watch, you know, if I was up, I'd watch it. Yeah. And I think I was usually up in those days.

And stereotypically you are the Dick Cavett audience, right? I am, yeah. It seemed like half an hour, you know, where they were just yelling and yelling and yelling. It was, yeah. He was so alien that I felt sorry for him. He didn't dismiss that whole exchange or shrug or change the channel. He reacted to it. He imagines what a supporter of Lestermatics would think

watching Lestermatics storm off the stage. Dick, I'm gonna give you one minute to apologize before you call Biggis. In Georgia, I'm gonna leave the show. Now, you do whatever you want to about it. He gives that imaginary supporter a name, Johnny Cutler, a home, Birmingham, Alabama, a job, steelworker. He imagines Johnny Cutler coming home one night drunk,

gazing at his sleeping wife, and then he imagines him turning on the television. Last night I saw Lestimatics on a TV show with some smart-ass New York Jew. And the Jew laughed at less thematics. And the audience laughed at less thematics too. Oh, the thematics on it too. So, smart ass New York Jew, that's good. And the audience laughed at less thematics too. That's pretty good.

It's pretty good. Yeah, not really, it click a click a click a. That became the first song on Good Old Boys. It's called Rednecks. When I first heard that, I didn't know Lister Maddox was. Yeah. I didn't even know that it was, but that idea of the Southerner going to New York

and sitting down. And thinking Dick Cavett is Jewish too. Yeah, which is fantastic. Well, he may be a fool, but he's our fool. And if they think they're better than him, they're wrong. So when I came to this park, I took some... You want to sing along, don't you? It's like Sail Away all over again. ...is where I made this song.

But then comes this. We talk real funny down here. We drank too much and we laughed too loud. We're too dumb to make it in no northern town. And we're keeping niggas down. It's 1970, the South is in upheaval. Lestermatics has just been humiliated by some smart-ass New York Jew. What do you think Johnny Cutler's gonna say?

College men are a valet's youth. When in dumb, come out dumb too. Hustlin' round Atlanta in their alligator shoes. How did people respond to that song at the time? I played it in Lafayette, Louisiana, and they loved it. I got a letter, the only one I ever got, on this song from somebody, and he said, dear sir, I was in the audience in Lafayette when you played this song. He's a black kid. And he said, I don't know where you're coming from, but there I was.

And I was enjoying the concert up to then. And all of a sudden I'm sitting in the middle of 1,500 white guys yelling, rednecks, we're rednecks, you know. And he said it made him very uncomfortable and he wanted to let me know. We're Rednecks, we're Rednecks, and we don't know our ass from a hole in the ground. We're Rednecks. Southern audiences started yelling for it so they could sing along with the chorus. Did it become, was it taken over by, didn't become a kind of Southern anthem for a certain

kind of, or did? When I thought that that was happening, I stopped playing it, you know, in the South. He had to stop singing it. Many radio stations wouldn't play it. And you definitely wouldn't hear that song on the radio today. It even feels strange to play it here. We've become, appropriately, uncomfortable with the N-word, in almost any context. You can only play Rednecks now if you explain where it came from

and who Johnny Cutler was. But you can't not play it, just because it makes you feel uncomfortable. Because Johnny Cutler in Birmingham, Alabama in 1970 absolutely wanted to keep the niggers down. And we can't gloss over that fact if we're being honest. Oh, and by the way, Johnny Cutler wasn't done. He then names every slum in every northern city. He says to all those smug northerners, when you drive with your windows up and your doors locked through the projects of your own inner cities, are you still sure you're better than me?

You have to play that too. Because if you're going to be honest about who Lester Maddox really was, you have to be honest about his critics too. Did you ever hear from Lester Maddox? He sent me an axe handle. He didn't, really? Yeah.

Oh, that's fantastic. From his store. He sold axe handles. Yeah, pick handles. Lester Maddox listened to a song about racial hatred and he sent the man who wrote it a pick handle as a token of his gratitude. ["The Greatest Showman"]

Revisionist History is produced by Mia LeBelle and Jacob Smith with Camille Baptista. Our editor is Julia Barton. Flon Williams is our engineer. Fact-checking by Beth Johnson. Original music by Luis Guerra. Special thanks to Carly Migliori, Heather Fain, Maggie Taylor, Maya Koenig and Jacob Weisberg. Revisionist history is brought to you by Pushkin Industries. I'm Malcolm Gladwell. By the way, there's a great essay on this subject in the 2014 book, Let the Devil Speak by Stephen Hart.

Hart writes that, In sail away, Randy Newman showed one of America's greatest lies being crafted. In his next album, Newman would show how the lie soaked into America's greatest lies being crafted. In his next album, Newman would show how the lie soaked into America's bones. Come aboard little one and sail away. Ben, what you can't? I think this is sort of happy. I mean, certainly the voices make it that way. You can't do it. I like that buckwheat cake.

Like it's something of delicacy you're getting at the artisanal bakery. This is Ira Glass, the host of This American Life. So much is changing so rapidly right now with President Trump in office. It feels good to pause for a moment sometimes and look around at what's what. To try and do that, we've been finding these incredible stories about right now that are funny and have feeling and you get to see people everywhere adapting and making sense of this new America that we find ourselves in. If you haven't listened in a while, I honestly think these are some of the best stories we've

ever done. This American Life every week wherever you get your podcasts. This is an iHeart Podcast.