Bonnaroo flap inspires Vaughn to write song
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Those words are part of the chorus of a song he has written about the three-day Bonnaroo music festival, or perhaps, its guests. The third annual festival, which attracts thousands of eclectic music lovers from across the country, gets under way today in Coffee County.
The song is “loosely based” on actual events in Warren County, Vaughn said, but anyone who has both heard the song and kept up with Bonnaroo happenings last year can see the similarities between reality and fiction.
Court cases were eventually dismissed last summer after Bonnaroo travelers were cited into court while making their way through Warren County. The song references, with what Vaughn calls the addition of “poetic license,” in part what happened.
“I had some folks on my public radio show and we were talking about the events that occurred with Bonnaroo last year and I was talking to a couple of lawyers and a little light bulb went off in my head like in the cartoons,” Vaughn said of why he wrote the song.
“I said, ‘There’s got to be a country song in there somewhere.’ So I went home and walked my dog, and I have to give my dog co-writing credit, I guess, I walked my dog along the river and it just fell into place.”
Vaughn, a retired military officer who used writing to allay the pressures of military life and who has since written hundreds of songs, said he penned the words in about 20 minutes.
The words are set to the melody of a song sung by Stonewall Jackson called “Waterloo,” for which he had to get special permission to use. The entertainer of the year in New Zealand, and an associate of Vaughn’s, Kevin Greaves, sings the song, which is called “The Ballad of Bonnaroo.”
He joked that an informal poll showed one out of three people he has asked have actually heard the song, which has received some local air play this week.
“Everybody I’ve talked to thinks it’s hilarious,” Greaves said of reactions to the song, which he said he planned to release as a single sometime this summer. “It’s not a mean-spirited song. It’s just a little good-natured ribbing and I hope, a funny story.”