Another good old 80’s song. Had a discussion with a dude about the early verse…
Now the revenue man wanted Grandaddy bad
He headed up the holler with everything he had
It’s before my time but I’ve been told
He never came back from Copperhead Road
I had always assumed the Revenue man was the one who never came back. But was talking to a guy who was sure that it was Granddaddy who never came back.
I gotta admit it isn’t fully clear, and with the general sense of family tragedy in the song, it does seem on theme.
Well, the sheriff caught wind that Amos
Was in the swamp trappin’ alligator skins
So he snuck in the swamp, gonna get the boy
But he never come out again
“He never come out again” refers to the sheriff, not Amos.
Well all I know is the once two strangers climbed old Rocky Top looking for a moonshine still. Them two strangers never came down from Rocky Top, reckon they never will.
Its what happens when you get your corn from a jar.
In the 1880s, some preachers on their way to a religious conference were murdered in Arkansas by moonshiners believing them to be revenuers. I always understood it to mean that grandad took care of that revenue officer.
The grammar of the verse suggests the revenue man doesn’t come back. He is the “he” referenced earlier. In addition, the grandfather was at Copperhead Road, while the other man was arriving from elsewhere, so “never came back from” implies the latter, as the grandfather didn’t go to Copperhead Road but was already there.
ETA: Driving a stick doesn’t require your hand except for shifting. Plenty of time to swig hooch.
Considering the overall theme of the song, I always thought it was his granddaddy who didn’t come back, but it also makes sense that the revenue man wouldn’t have come back.
The revenuer is the subject of the first sentence, and Granddaddy is the direct object. Therefore, the revenuer is the implied subject of the following sentence.
When I was a kid I used to think this verse referred to a pair of wayward adventurers who had such a grand old time partying with the mountain folk that they decided to stay. The darker meaning was slow to dawn on me.
As for Copperhead Road, I always assumed it was the Revenue Man who never came back. Wikipedia, though, is not a definitive source.
Nothing in the complete lyrics suggests harm to the distillers/growers other than flashbacks to Vietnam, and there is a stated threat to outsiders for which the story of grandpa and the revenoor serves as an object lesson.
Yep, later in the song, when he starts growing weed along Copperhead Road, he talks about the DEA having a chopper in the air, and how he’s “Learned a thing or two from Charlie”, which clearly means how to win a fight in the wilderness against a force with superior technology and resources.
It’s definitely the revenuer who didn’t come back in Grandpa’s day.
There are shots in the official video of a newspaper with the headline “Moonshine Raid On Copperhead Road”, and shots of barrels and stills being destroyed. That implies that The Law had some success there, rather than just disappearing.
However, I voted that it was the revenuer, not grandpa, that met with an untimely end, based on the lyric’s syntax and the tradition of vanishing lawmen in country songs (discussed in previous posts).
An official video doesn’t always tell the same story as the song.
I’d always took this to mean he’d learned how to hide things from helicopters etc not how to win a fight. You don’t win firefights against the DEA. And if you do initially, you just cause them to come down on you harder.
I’d always assumed the police had simply caught his daddy, and then burned the moonshine. But I suppose it makes more sense your way.