Polk Salad Annie - Tony Joe White

If some of ya’ll never been down south too much

I’m gonna tell you a little bit about this

So that you’ll understand what I’m talkin' about

Down there we have a plant that grows out in the woods

And in the fields looks somethin' like a turnip green

And everybody calls it polk salad, polk salad

Used to know a girl lived down there

And she’d go out in the evenings and pick her a mess of it

Carry it home and cook it for supper

'Cause thats about all they had to eat, but they did all right

Down in Louisiana, where the alligators grow so mean

There lived a girl, that I swear to the world

Made the alligators look tame

Polk salad Annie, polk salad Annie

Everybody said it was a shame

Cause her momma was a workin' on the chain gang

(A mean vicious woman)

Everyday?

for supper time, she’d go down by the truck patch

And pick her a mess of polk salad, and carry it home in a tow sack

Polk salad Annie, the gators got your granny

Everybody says it was a shame

Cause her momma was a workin' on the chain gang

(A wretched, spiteful, straight-razor totin' woman

Lord have Mercy, pick a mess of it)

Her daddy was lazy and no count, claimed he had a bad back

All her brothers were fit for was stealin' watermelons

Out of my truck patch

Polk salad Annie, the gators got your granny

Everybody said it was a shame

Cause her momma was a workin' on the chain gang

(Sock a little polk salad to me, you know I need me a mess of it)