I’ve been listening to the song “That’s the night the lights went out in Georgia” and I’ve been trying to figure out what that line means. If you know the song, I figured the lights went out because they electrocuted the guy for ‘his’ crimes, but that’s not true because they said they hanged him. So if someone could explain it to me I’d appreciate it.
I believe “lights went out” is just a euphemism for death in general.
A euphemism fo no hope or happiness, I assume.
It is a complicated story. There was a backwoods, Southern lawyer, a judge in town with blood stains on his hands, a murderous, vigilante little sister, no corpse. And being Georgia, probably an afternoon thunder storm that knocked out the electrical power.
I don’t think this was ever a common phrase, just songwriter shorthand for saying that darkness replacing light means “a bad thing happened”.
If I can editorialize, I think this song is pretty unrealistic and stupid. A much better example of a “southern gothic” song is Bobby Gentry’s “Ode to Billy Joe”: Bobby Gentry - Ode to Billy Joe - YouTube
I think the intention is that the lights went out because of the use of the electric chair, without regard for the fact that it’s inconsistent with the next line. If you like, take “hung” as being metonymous for “executed”.
I wish I had time to explain, but supper’s waiting at home and I gotta get to it.
mmm
OK, I’m Jewish, so maybe I have a bad grasp of this, but isn’t the very next line “That’s the night they hung an innocent man”?
I thought it was a reference to the supposed daylight darkness that happened at the moment of the crucifixion.
Crucified people are often referred to as hung (not hanged) on, or upon trees, as opposed to “from” them. There’s no preposition in the phrase in the song, but the verb is “hung,” not “hanged.” I suppose it could be an error, or maybe the author thought “hung” scanned better (I think both words work). But it seems odd as a mere coincidence along with the “darkness.”
Not to mention the rushed nature of it-- they seriously had a trial and conviction in one day, and an immediate execution? It seems to me that is too fast for the suspension of disbelief, and it makes more sense if you attach some symbolism to it.
But again, I’m Jewish-- there might be all kinds of subtleties I’m missing. I’m not always around gospel ideas used as metaphors and allusions.
I don’t think there is any symbolism or deeper meaning to the song, it is just a straightforward fictional pop song account, similar to the completely fictional “The Night Chicago Died” by Paper Lace.
It’s a sophisticated metaphor for injustice, duh.
I always thought it was about a lynching…
I always thought it was a weird song. She murdered two people because they cheated on her brother, but it’s the state’s fault for hanging a guy who sure looks like he had motive and opportunity and was caught a smoking gun? She’s all upset about the state’s action, but couldn’t come forward and confess to save her brother after offing his cheating wife and friend?
I don’t think there’s any metaphor other than it’s the end of life and hope (but not for her, for her brother she inadvertantly framed…)
I cannot imagine anyone having any other interpretation than this utterly obvious one. Color me baffled about all the comments other than @Jackmannii’s
That was the day the light of civilization was extinguished in Georgia.
Truth be told, that light has always been a guttering candle in a hurricane. But the day depicted in the song was especially dark.
Yeah, lights go out = hope is extinguished.
It’s not at all connected to the song, but Arthur Koestler’s novel Darkness at Noon uses a similar metaphor. He took it from Job 5:14: “They meet with darkness in the daytime, and grope in the noonday as in the night”
the song by Carol Burnet actress Vicky Lawrence, came out in 1973 a year after it was written, according to Wiki. In 1972, counties didn’t decide their own execution methods - and the line says ‘the state’. HOWEVER, it’s confusing how the execution could be legally done - we’d have to assume the song was talking about a past incident, since the Supreme Court banned executions in 1973, off a 1972 case. Googling for the Georgia executeds, the chart doesn’t list method for each executed, but Wiki says outright there were only 2 methods used in the state’s history: electrocution & injection. It also says the 1st guy in GA history electrocuted in GA was 1926. Assuming the state didn’t switch back & forth, we can logically deduce the guy in the song (narrative singer’s brother) was indeed electrocuted, figuratively making all the lights go out - a common device in songs, poetry, & even fiction is exaggerating for effect - maybe a comment on how strong the current was, maybe a comment on the injustice of it all. It looks like Chronos is right; the next line about ‘…hung an innocent man’ is a colloquialism, like a tough judge who hands out death penalty sentence when merited, would be called a hanging judge no matter the method of execution. The nice subtlety of what the songwriter did in writing the lights going out phrase, is the double meaning i.e. the injustice of it all too. But since he never mentions anything about GA going off-plan about the judicial process (aside from whacking the wrong guy & railroading the trial), evidence points to electric chair, I guess it’s possible with some lights in the prison dimming during the event.
Darkness means injustice. Or hatred.
And the song makes NO DAMN SENSE!
Indeed, Georgia outlawed hanging as a method of execution in 1924 and the last hanging was in 1931. But the Georgia Patrol (which was “making its rounds”) was created until 1937. So, assuming he was executed in Georgia between 1937 and 1973, I think you’re right. But I also think you’re overthinking it.
Why should we assume that he was electrocuted? I’ve looked at five different lyrics sites, including one from the United Kingdom, and they all transcribe the chorus thusly:
That’s the night that the lights went out in Georgia
That’s the night that they hung an innocent man
Well, don’t trust your soul to no backwoods southern lawyer
Cause the judge in the town’s got bloodstains on his hands
“The lights went out” is a metaphor. Next someone will ask if “the day the music died” in American Pie literally meant all the music in the world stopped playing, or if Mick Jagger actually had a yen for oatmeal cookies when he sang Brown Sugar.
Here in Gwinnett County, Georgia, the old courthouse is in the historic downtown Lawrenceville, surrounded by those artisanal sandwich shops and brewpubs enjoyed by professionals all across America. It was briefly famous as the place where Hustler Magazine publisher Larry Flynt and his lawyer were shot in 1978 when it was still an operating courthouse.
In the back alley of the building’s exterior is a tall, vertical channel with a bricked-off doorframe in the upper storey. It used to open onto a removable platform with a trap door.
When Georgia switched to electrocution, its practice was unusual in that the process was, like earlier hangings, performed there at the courthouse, actually in the courtroom. A traveling electric chair and dynamo would make the rounds of the state, not unlike the traveling guillotine in France.
@RivkahChaya, I read somewhere that there were 10,000 Jews living in Georgia in 1913. After Leo Frank was lynched graphic violence images warning , half of them moved away as fast as they could.