Crazy In Alabama

I heard Odessa's mind was sick

That she was crazier than hell

The police caught her turning tricks

Down at the Blue and Gray motel

Odessa was the neighbor's maid

She had ten mouths at home to feed

They bussed her kids to Birmingham

And put her in the county jail

Nobody seemed to give a damn

They say a white man posted bail

My dad said not to breathe a word

I told my brother all I heard

And the train of change

Was coming fast to my hometown

We had the choice to climb on board

Or get run down

It was crazy there

Were grown men fights

Over segregation and civil rights

Martin Luther King and the KKK

George C. Wallace and LBJ

And when the National Guard came in

I thought the world was gonna end

It was crazy in Alabama

Down at the corner Dairy Dip

They sold soft ice cream for a dime

White people ordered from the front

The side was for the colored line

We all were told they had their place

Because they were a different race

We spent hot summer afternoons

At the public swimming pool

Where the privileged and the few

Played on their island of cool blue

Brown children

Watched outside the fence

It never made one lick of sense

But the train of change

Was coming fast to my hometown

We had the choice to climb on board

Or get run down

My momma yelled child get inside

Drew the drapes and locked the doors

We watched the marchers passing by

Felt the rumble heard the roar

They all held hands they sang and wept

And freedom rang in every step

Cause the train of change

Was marching through my hometown

We had the choice to climb on board

Or get run down