The Story behind “Down Up South”

By Kirk Beasley

“Down Up South” OR “You Ain’t Got Down ‘til You’ve Been Up South”
Song Idea August 10, 2019
Beasley-Ogdin-Turk for Top Drawer Music (BMI)

 Check out the notes to the right for the highlighted words.

VERSE 1
My late Daddy and his Nite Owls here they came to play
In a song they called it Music City USA
They cut the Tennessee Waltz around two AM
With the Gov’nor and his cronies, yeah they all joined in
The papers said the Gov’s got the common touch
Way Down Yonder it was all Too Much
The Senate asked the Gov to address the House,
He said:
You Ain’t Got Down ‘til You’ve Been Up South
No, You Ain’t Got Down ‘til You’ve Been Up South

CHORUS
All the cowgirls sing:

Well lookee here and lookee there
Well hush my mouth!
Yeah … You Ain’t Got Down … ‘til You’ve Been Up South
Yeah … You Ain’t Got Down … ‘til You’ve Been Up South

VERSE 2
It’s Been a Long, Long Time  Lonely Lonely Lonely Me
Since I walked those streets up in Tennessee
Where rockabilly chicks are having too much fun
Singing Wang Dang Doo at the top of their lungs
Drinking Danish beer with the royalty
Making a Fool of Myself comes nat’ral to me
So pack your bags and lock the house
You Ain’t Got Down … ‘til You’ve Been Up South
No, You Ain’t Got Down ‘til You’ve Been Up South

REPEAT CHORUS

BRIDGE
Some come for the music
Some come for a chance
To do the Broad Way
Knocked out downtown Up South dance!

REPEAT CHORUS

Liner notes for this song:

In this song I string together a bunch of the song titles by my parents, Bill and Jean Beasley, to create the lyrics of a song with a catchy hook. So here we go:

My Dad owned a recording studio in Nashville in the early 1950s, as well as a couple of record labels. On the weekends, he had a group of session players that he called the Nite Owls (who included Boudleaux Bryant) to record acts as they came off the Opry late at night.

My Dad wrote the song “Music City USA” with Dick Stratton to use on the Hayloft Jamboree radio show on WKDA. It was released on my Dad’s label Jamboree in August 1950. It may represent one of the earliest uses of that trademark in media.

One night the Governor of Tennessee sang the “Tennessee Waltz” on the Opry and then went to Dad’s recording studio off of Fourth Avenue, near where the old Sears used to be, and recorded the “Tennessee Waltz” with the studio band. It was later released on Mercury in 1951.

“Down Yonder” (or “Way Down Yonder”) was a hit by Del Wood that my father produced and released in on his label Tennessee in June 1951. There’s a great story about it.

“Too Much” was a song my parents wrote for Bernard Hardison, a Nashville R&B artist. First released as Republic 7111 in 1955, it was later covered by Elvis Presley.

“It’s Been a Long Long Time” is a song my parents wrote. It’s on Griselda’s Reno Nevada (STR716).

My parents wrote “Lonely Lonely Lonely Me” for Brenda Lee. It was later covered in a more successful version in France by a Brenda Lee soundalike, Jocelyne.

“Wang Dang Doo” is a song my parents cowrote with J. T. Adams in 1958 for Ferlin Husky and was used in the soundtrack to the movie Country Music Holiday. Carlsberg (the Danish beer with the royalty) used it in a TV ad a couple years ago in Europe. Hence the royalty.

“Making a Fool of Myself” is a song my parents wrote and is on Griselda’s Reno Nevada (STR716).

The “pack your bags and lock the house” line is an homage to the song “Music City USA.”

My parents are the late Bill Beasley and Jean Norris Beasley. Martin Hawkins writes about their work in the early days of the Nashville music industry in his book A Shot in the Dark: Making Records in Nashville, 1945–1955.