Rosslyn’s Redneck Yacht Club

I challenge any red blooded American who’s spent a little time in the country to dislike Redneck Yacht Club from Craig Morgan‘s 2005 album My Kind of Livin.

Can’t do it! Redneck, city slicker, suburbanite, exurbanite, whatever… If you give this energetic summer anthem a second or two you’ll be hooked. Scoff if you need to. Turn up your nose if your tastes are too refined for the Redneck Yacht Club. But I’m gambling that the next time you hear it pumping out the window of a slow-passing pickup truck you’ll smile. And hum the chorus. And admit to yourself that it’s a pretty catchy tune.

Here’s a little taste of the chorus. Try to read it without singing/humming the melody. Just try!

Basstrackers, Bayliners and a party barge,
strung together like a floating trailer park,
anchored out and gettin loud.
All summer long, side by side,
there’s five houseboat, front porches astroturf,
lawn chairs and tiki torches,
regular Joes rocking the boat. That’s us,
the redneck yacht club.
(CowboyLyrics.com)

See what I mean? So, your Chris Craft tastes don’t feel comfy with a song about Bayliners and party barges… So what? Stop judging and start bobbing your head!

I did.

You see, for the first year (or two?) that my bride and I were renovating/rehabilitating Rosslyn, Redneck Yacht Club played on always-on WOKO again and again. I don’t remember for sure, but I may have scoffed outwardly (and hummed inwardly) the first time I heard the song. But not the second. I laughed. I sang along. I went out and bought the album! Several years later, WOKO is no longer the default radio channel at Rosslyn, but I still hear the song from time to time. And when I do, it transports me instantly to the days of demolition, of surprises (mold, rot, bad electric, bad plumbing) and a mushrooming scope of work. It also takes me back to a house full of laughing contractors, rambling stories, off-color jokes and meals shared on sawhorses and upturned compound buckets.