Monolog - The Nightgown / The South

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Sam's Enchanted Evening version

During The Residents performance of Sam's Enchanted Evening at The Marsh in Berkeley Sam would give many monolog in-between almost every song. This monolog shows up Sam's opinion on the south and his politically incorrect ways. Here is a transcription of this introduction as found on the Klanggalerie release of this show. This monologue does show similarities with So Long Sam's "South Monolog" but it is significantly longer.

This monolog does have some highlights. It is the only time in the show Sam brings up his friend Randy and tells a story of them seeing Otis Redding at the Municipal auditorium but not being allowed in because of their race. History shows that this was normal for the time in Shreveport, Louisiana and segregation was enforced in this way against white people due to fear of police involvement.

Mack? Probably seems kinda weird old guy like me. Up here singing this sentimental kinda stuff like the September song and all but you know I gotta blame my momma. I gotta blame my momma, uhhh, you ko- you know, you know what it's like in the morning? You know when you first wake up and you see the the sunlight just comes streaming in through the curtains in you bedroom window that’s that’s that's what my momma was to me. That’s what that's what my momma was to me! She, she was the light. She was the light, and it just wrapped itself all around you, like uh, warm, fuzzy, blanket.

You know, one one one one Christmas, uhhh one Christmas I ga- I have my momma a nightgown! Gave her a nightgown, uhhh, I guess it was kinda a weird present, uhhh, cause, as soon as she, as soon as she opened it up. She started crying. She just started crying, I thought I had done something bad, ah, ah I felt so bad but, she loved that Nightgown. She loved it and, you know she passed away, not so long ago and uh, I was, I was looking through her stuff and, I found that Nightgown. I found that Nightgown and, and, and I took it. And, I keep it, I keep it with me all the time. And sometimes when I’m, when I'm feeling really bad I, I take it out and I, I rub it on my cheek and it, It makes me think of my momma. 

Well, I guess I guess you can tell I’m I’m from the south. Duh. But you know, the south, the south back in the in in the 50s and the 60s, it was a really different place, then what it is now. Uh, back then, you know, you had, uh, you had you had you had your white people over here and over you you had your N***-, uhhhh. Uhhh, colored people! You had your colored people over here. 

Ok! Ok! Alright so, so what I was gonna say is you've got your white people and you got your n****** over here! And now that I said it! You probably just think that im some kinda KKK racist asshole or something, well it's not true! It's not, I ain't, I ain't, I ain't no racist look, I, I have got something I have, I have to say here right now! 

Uhhhh, uh once me and this buddy of mine we were going to see Otis Redding at the municipal auditorium in, in Shreveport, Louisiana. You know and me and Randy we was just walking down the aisle like that and all of the sudden this great big black n***-... Black man! Just comes up to us and he says, he says, 

“You can't come in here. You can't come in here cause you're white!”

And we said “Hey man, uhh uhhh, we just, we just wanna see Otis and have a good time!”

And then his voice get kinda quiet like and he says uhhh

“Well, you know ummm, if the Shreveport police find out that we are letting white people into our shows, they will just shut us down permanent and and we cant have anymore shows.” 

And he gives us our money and and we left, but WHO WAS THE VICTIM OF RACISM HERE! HUH! Tell tell me that! 

Uh you know uh we used to have this maid and her name was Pearly, and ol Pearly, she looked, she looked almost exactly like, mammy in Gone with the Wind. I mean she was big and fat like that you know uh, big apron on, and uh and a red bandana around her head and all. Uhh, she was so sweet to me. She was so sweet, almost like she was my own mammy. I didn't, I didn't know much about this kinda stuff back then I was just a kid you know and, it wasn't really until the until, years later, that I found out that the south in the 1950s was really not that different from the south in the 1850s as far as uh the colors were concerned ha hah ah yeah they may have won their “freedom” you know all that shit back with Lincoln and all but then everybody just forgot about it for a hundred years.

Ha hah ha ha TELL THOSE TELL THOSE GOD DAMN LIBREAL ASS FUCKING FREEDOM RIDERS CAME ALONG and everything got complicated! But, when I was a kid, the south was kinda, sweet and simple. Uh, kinda like this uh, oh Mack hey… 

List of releases

• Sam's Enchanted Evening (2023)

See also

• So Long Sam
• Sam's Enchanted Evening