Louisiana 1927

CNN.com - Todd Leopold - Sep 1, 2005: "New Orleans watched the Mississippi Valley floodwaters nervously. On a single day in April the city had received 14 inches of rain, which put parts of it under more than six feet of water; the French Quarter had two feet. If a levee broke, the city would be doomed.

Eventually, fearful townspeople prompted the governor to dynamite a levee south of town to relieve the pressure on New Orleans. The city was spared. Others in the state weren't so lucky.

The flood, as chronicled in John M. Barry's book "Rising Tide," led to dramatic changes in the United States. It was a factor in the Great Migration of African-Americans to northern industrial cities, and many of the migrants wrote songs and tales about the Great Flood.

I first heard Randy Newman's "Louisiana 1927" while growing up in New Orleans. The local radio stations always liked playing songs with Louisiana references: Gary U.S. Bonds' "New Orleans," Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Born on the Bayou," Arlo Guthrie's "City of New Orleans," Louisiana LeRoux's "New Orleans Ladies." I don't now if the radio stations knew the history documented in the song or were completely ignorant of it and just liked the title. Whatever they thought, "Louisiana 1927" created its own mesmerizing power.

The song starts with plaintive strings, something out of the 19th century. Then Newman's humble voice comes on, singing lyrics at once as basic as a newsreel and as majestic as Homer."