When I first heard the song in the fall of 1970, it was being performed satirically. It wasn’t until a few years later that I found out it had been written and originally performed by a country artist who had meant it seriously, and hadn’t intended it as a parody of those small-town pinheads who find freedom in groupthink and can’t deal with even the mere presence of anyone different from them.
That blew my mind because it totally works as parody. When I found that out, I wondered how the songwriter could have possibly been oblivious to that.
I think it’s telling that although many of the roles are reversed fifty years later–I doubt people in Muscogee today have much respect for deans, or any other college adminstrators–the divide is still there, burning full blast. Some people just need conflict.