State of the Union - Arkansas

George writes

Week 6. Researching this state for a long time…...getting desperate, might have to include a song by the bloke from Long Branch, New Jersey…...listened to all five minutes twenty seconds……………..it’s not getting included.

I’ve listened to a right load of old nonsense trying to find ONE song that references this damned state in the title.

• Lee Ann Dorsey - A little time past Little Rock. The worst kind of bland country music.
• Said The Whale - Jesse, AR.  Started off as a nothing pop song but had an almost prog. rock change of direction part way through, then reverted to bland nothingness.
• Don Williams, turned out his song about the Arkansas River referenced Oklahoma, and it was nonsense anyway

But thankfully Glen Campbell can supply a song. Not “Delight, Arkansas”,  not “Arkansas”, where he rhymes “opportunity” with “do to me”, and laments ever having to leave his home state, but  Arkansas Farmboy

Glen Campbell - Arkansas farmboy

Al Green was born in Arkansas. But did he think to write a song about it? Obviously not otherwise it would be here.

And even more  thankfully the second son of Carrie Cloverlee was born in Kingsland, Arkansas, and wrote and performed a song called Arkansas Lovin’ Man in 1972

Johnny Cash - Arkansas lovin' man

That’s Arkansas, home of the World Championship Duck Calling contest. Here’s a thirty-two minute clip of the 2017 contest. I think the contestants get 90 seconds of duck calling each. I listened to all of number one, started on the second one but it sounded the same, skipped ahead to number six…..which sounded the same.

And  that’s Arkansas, whose town of Alma is the world spinach capital.

More next week. Will any other state be less inspiring?

CC writes
I was going to post Arkansas Traveler by Michelle Shocked but reading between the lines I think that George secretly wants this

Bruce Springsteen -Mary Queen of Arkansas