Aug29

Small Town Hypocrite – Song Lyric Sunday

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Small Town Hypocrite – Song Lyric Sunday

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For SLS today we have songs about either hypocrites, fraud, phony, pretender, or snob.  Thanks, Jim!

.To join in this fun weekly challenge, and to see other entries, just click the link below.

https://jimadamsauthordotcom.wordpress.com/2021/08/28/was-shakespeare-a-fraud/

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Just browsing around for a song to fit today’s prompt words I found this one by Caylee Hammack. I’d never heard of this artist or her song, but I like it a lot. In an interview she said it is mostly autobiographical about what happened to her. She gave up a college musical scholarship to be with her boyfriend. They had big dreams, but after seven years, it just wasn’t happening. After their break-up she headed to Nashville to follow her original dreams and plans.

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From a Wiki article:

Hammack wrote “Small Town Hypocrite” while still being a staff writer, together with Jared Scott, about the breakup with her boyfriend who cheated on her, which eventually brought her to Nashville. Later she found out that he lived in a double-wide trailer, which made its way into the song’s final verse.[17] The song was officially released on February 21, 2020.[18]

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Hand me down dreams got me high in the rafters
Homecoming queen couldn’t be an outsider
So there I’d sit, with a cigarette lit in a leather jacket
I found a boy who was a stranger too
In a one-horse town at a stable for two
We had matching scars and matching tattoos
Both dying to fit in
Ain’t that some shit
We’re just small-town hypocrites
And that scholarship was a ship that sailed
When I chose you and daddy gave me hell
I made myself into someone else just to love you, damn I loved you
Took all my plans and I put ’em in a box
Phantom pains for the wings I lost
Had me circling rings in the catalogs
For seven years and you never got the hint
Ain’t that some shit
I’m just a small-town hypocrite
Swore we’d be running, running, running this town
But you’re just running, running, running around
And I’m staring at a picket fence
Wondering where the hell time went
I should’ve been running, running, running by now
But I just hang around
Love shot me out like a rocket
Never to return and man, I forgot it
How it feels to fall from orbit and land on shifting sands
I found my heart at the bottom of a bucket
You said you needed space and damnit I bought it
‘Till you moved in a vinyl sided double wide with a couple of her kids
Ain’t that some shit
You’re just a small-town hypocrite (Oooh, oooh, ooooh)
Swore we’d be running, running, running this town
But you’re still running, running, running around
And I’m staring at a picket fence
Wondering where the hell time went
I should’ve been running, running, running by now
But I just hang around
Now I bitch about how things turned and how they should’ve been
The bridges that I burned and the trains I didn’t catch
Like a small-town hypocrite
Just a small-town hypocrite
Source: Musixmatch
Songwriters: Jared Scott Slocum
Small Town Hypocrite lyrics © Universal Music Corp., 27 Entertainment, Sounds Like Chet Publishing, Apfm
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Thanks for visiting! Peace ☮️
2021 BS

 

23 responses »

  3. Thanks for finding this song Barbara, as I think it is lovely. Sometimes things happen for a reason and if she didn’t find out about him cheating on her, she might be living in that double-wide trailer with him.

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    Reply ↓

  4. My exact reaction, too. Harper Valley PTA. Harper Valley P.T.A.
    Jeannie C. Riley
    I wanna tell you all the story bout the Harper Valley widow’s wife
    Who had a teenage daughter who attended Harper Valley Junior High
    Well her daughter came home one afternoon and didn’t even stop to play
    And she said mom I got a note here from the Harper Valley PTA
    Well the note said Mrs. Johnson
    You’re wearin’ your dresses way too high
    It’s reported you’ve been drinkin’ and
    A runnin’ round with men and goin’ wild
    And we don’t believe you oughta be a
    Bringin’ up your little girl this way
    And it was signed by the secretary Harper Valley PTA
    Well it happened that the PTA was gonna meet that very afternoon
    And they were sure surprised when Mrs.Johnson
    Wore her miniskirt into the room
    And as she walked up to the blackboard I can still recall
    The words she had to say
    She said I’d like to address this meeting of the Harper Valley PTA
    Well there’s Bobby Taylor sittin’
    There and seven times he asked me for a date
    And Mrs. Taylor sure seems to use a lotta ice whenever he’s away
    And Mr. Baker can you tell us why
    Your secretary had to leave this town
    And shouldn’t widow Jones be told to keep
    Her window shades all pulled completely down
    Well Mr. Harper couldn’t be here cause
    He stayed too long at Kelly’s Bar again
    And if you smell Shirley Thompson’s
    Breath you’ll find she’s had a little nip of gin
    And THEN you have the nerve to tell me
    You think that as a mother I’m not fit
    Well this is just a little Peyton Place
    And you’re all Harper Valley hypocrites
    No I wouldn’t put you on because it
    Really did it happened just this way
    The day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA
    The day my mama socked it to the Harper Valley PTA

    Songwriters: Hall, Clement, Wooley
    For non-commercial use only.
    Data from: Musixmatch
    Feedback
    Jeannie C. Riley – Harper

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  6. Personally I think the reason this song was and remains so memorable is because every little town PTA (Parent Teachers Association; sometime it adds the word Student to the acronym.

    My late BFF was president of our PTA for years, and later president of the School Board. I never liked organizations much, this song was always so appropos … along with assorted other groups, which were also in the running.

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