Yeah, the Kansas song on Half Mad Moon is one I've listened to over
and over because I had a hard time a) deciphering the lyrics, b)
understanding how they all went together once I'd figured them out
(there are still a couple of lines I don't get, in fact...). And
being in Kansas, I felt duty-bound to figure it out <g>.
As William says, the song refers to the "Bleeding Kansas" period of
pro- and anti-slavery violence following the Kansas-Nebraska Act in
1854. Outrage against the way this act opened the door for a spread
of slavery after the Missouri Compromise, etc., gave birth to the
Republican party, bitter guerilla warfare between pro- and
anti-slavery factions in Kansas itself (John Brown, a notorious
massacre in Lawrence, the town I'm writing from right now, etc.), and
the famous incident on the floor of the U.S. Senate in which
Massachusetts Senator Charles Sumner was beaten senseless by southern
Senator Preston Brooks. (You think the House Managers were partisan
last month!!!). Sumner denounced the "crimes against Kansas" and
ended up in a bloody heap on the floor.
And yet the Damnations song has a fun, jangly feeling, so that my
daughter knows the words already and sings them happily as we're
driving around Lawrence in the car: "Kansas Bleeding Kansas, back
home!!"
I still wonder how they came to write such a song. I initially
thought perhaps one of them was from here, but from what everyone
says they're from NY by way of the Southwest, etc. So who knows....
Someone should ask them.
--junior, in Lawrence, KS...
