Thursday, March 5, 2009

Music Box: The King Sings About Weeds

Today, because we are celebrating government pork, one of our all-time favorite tracks, "Polk Salad Annie." Confused? Join the club. Like a lot of people, we get lyrics wrong. In the case of this song, we not only had the lyrics wrong, but also the title. For years we thought this 1969 hit, written by Tony Joe White and performed here by Elvis, was actually about "Pork Salad." Oops. (But, seriously? Assuming you eat meat and don't keep kosher or anything, doesn't pork salad sound pretty darn tasty?) Anyway, the real title, "Polk Salad Annie something else. Polk or Poke is short for Pokeweed, a wild plant that grows in the South. Let the King explain.