A columnist for one of the largest news organizations in the country thinks "there's is only one state that has a really good state song" -- and it's Georgia.
From from the news the Virginia is once again in search for a new state song (its previous selection, "Carry Me Back to Old Virginny," was axed in 1997), the Washington Post's Petula Dvorak tackles a question apparently too little considered, at least by the people she stopped to ask: Why are state songs so unremarkable; or, worse, so bad?
"State songs are funny things," Dvorak wrote. "Most of them are formal marches or decrepit tunes with lyrics that include words like 'thy.'"
This includes California's "I Love You, California" ("which sounds like the scratchy score from a silent movie") and Edna Gockel Gussen's "Alabama" (which "sounds like it belongs in an Esther Williams swim spectacular") and Maryland's "Maryland, My Maryland" (a "dreadful" spin on "O Tannenbaum").
But not Georgia: "Yeah, give me Ray Charles singing 'Georgia on My Mind' any day," Dvorak wrote.
But don't take her word: listen for yourself.
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