\u201cCarolina When I Die\u201d<\/a> still has a chance to become the state\u2019s third official state song \u2014 but he\u2019ll have to make a few lyric changes first.<\/p>\nThe state House Committee on Education and Public Works met March 24 to vote on whether to approve the tune, which Camden native Patrick Davis wrote about missing home while out on the road, and have it join \u201cCarolina\u201d and \u201cCarolina on my Mind\u201d as official songs of the Palmetto State.<\/p>\n
Davis spoke to the committee \u2014 via video call \u2014 about the inspiration behind the song, and even pulled out his acoustic guitar and performed it for the lawmakers.<\/p>\n
\u201cI would wonder if we are the first committee to ever have a live recording or a concert,\u201d said Rep. Kambrell Garvin, D-Richland.<\/p>\n
The praise sputtered out once conservative lawmakers began questioning two of the lyrics in the first verse, however: \u201cI have drank with kings and queens and se\u00f1oritas of the night \/ I’ve been lost up in Alaska, lit in Ohio.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMy constituents, being more conservative, would take issue with this,\u201d said Rep. Stephen Frank, R-Greenville, a member of the ultra-conservative Freedom Caucus.<\/p>\n
Diane Mitchell, R–Greenville, wondered whether the quality of the lyrics \u201crise to the standard\u201d of representing the entire state.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s not that serious,\u201d said Rep. Michael Rivers, D-Beaufort.<\/p>\n
The first song, \u201cCarolina,\u201d became official on Feb. 11, 1911. The tune is pulled from a poem by Henry Timrod, \u201cSouth Carolina’s most beloved poet,\u201d according to SCIWAY, with music by Anne Custis Burgess. The other official song is \u201cCarolina on My Mind,\u201d a track by South Carolinians Hank Martin and Buzz Alredge that the legislature approved in 1984.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re not here trying to set a precedent, we\u2019re not here trying to make everything holy, because none of us are,\u201d said Rep. Terry Alexander, D-Florence.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n