Saturday, December 20, 2025

Uno Lying Down Comes Around, Sue Is still Waiting And Redneck Mother's Everywhere Are Still Seething

December 20, 2025
   Here's a favorite position of someone in our house.


Uno Lying Down

And here's what that looks like, in stone, on the side of Elephant Butte


Uno Lying Down In Stone


Yes, I am easily amused.



"Now, there's a story for the ages."

   Looking back on my movie deal in the early eighties, I realized a couple of things. One is, Hollywood bought the synopsis of Honkytonk Sue and what she stands for, not the story of Sue. And that has been a question mark that has hung over the property ever since. Columbia Pictures spent $150,000 trying to buy a story and they couldn't land it. They hired Larry McMurtry for God's sake, and he wrote three scripts with Leslie Marmon Silko and they couldn't get it to work. Of course, it didn't help that Goldie Hawn was calling the shots and when she said, regarding one of my synopsis of a possible story, "I don't think Indians are funny." And it was at that point I knew, this project is in trouble.
Speaking of story origination:


Up Against The Wall Red Neck Mother
   I had always assumed the mother referenced in the classic honkytonk song, was short for—mother trucker (that's not the actual swear but you knew that), so imagine my pleasant surprise when Texas Monthly tracked down the real reference:

"In the early seventies, Ray Wylie Hubbard lived in Dallas but spent his summers in Red River, New Mexico, playing music with other long-haired expats, like Texans B. W. Stevenson and Bob Livingston. There were only two places to buy beer in town, a hippie bar and a redneck bar, and one afternoon, when it was Hubbard’s turn to make a beer run, he decided to go to the redneck joint, the D-Bar-D, because it was closer.

"He regretted it immediately. 'I walked in and there were thirty or forty people drinking, including one old woman,' he recalls. 'The jukebox stopped and they all turned and looked at me.' He nervously asked the bartender for a case, and while he waited, he found himself getting baited by the woman and her son. 'How can you call yourself an American with hair like that?' she asked. Her son added, 'You want me to beat him up?' Hubbard got his beer and fled, but not before eyeing a pickup truck in the parking lot with a gun rack and a redneck bumper sticker. Once he was safely back with his pals, he picked up his guitar, strummed a G, and made up a song on the spot, about a redneck mother whose son was 'thirty-four and drinking in a honky-tonk, just kicking hippies’ asses and raising hell.'

"Hubbard eventually returned to Dallas and forgot about the song until a year later, when he got a call from Livingston, who was playing bass with Jerry Jeff Walker. Livingston had performed the song for Walker, who wanted to record it. But it needed another couple of verses. So, standing in his parents’ bedroom, phone to his ear, Hubbard once again made up some lines on the spot, about the pickup he’d seen in the parking lot, the gun rack, and a 'Goat ropers need love too' sticker.

"Walker included the song on his album ¡Viva Terlingua!, jump-starting Hubbard’s career. 'If I hadn’t gone into the D-Bar-D,' says Hubbard, 'that song never would have existed. It’s so strange that it all happened, still kind of a mystery.'”
—Texas Monthly

"He was born in Oklahoma
His wife's name's Betty Lou Thelma Liz
He's not responsible for what he's doing
'Cause his mother made him what he is

And it's up against the wall, Redneck Mother
Mother, who has raised her son so well
He's thirty four and drinking in a honky tonk
Just kicking hippies' asses and raising hell

Sure does like his Falstaff beer
He likes to chase it down with that Wild Turkey liquor
He drives a fifty seven GMC pickup truck
Got a gun rack, 'Goat roper needs love too' stickerM is for the mud flaps you give me for my pickup truck
O is for the oil I put on my hairT is for T-bird, H is for Haggard
E is for eggs and R is for Redneck

Up against the wall, Redneck Mother
Mother, who has raised her son so well
He's thirty four and drinkin' in a honky tonk
Kicking hippies' asses and raising hell"


—Ray Wilie Hubbard, Redneck Mother

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