Peak: #39 on the Hot 100
Streams: 900,000
This song was requested by Gary B. Paid subscribers can request a song right here.
Jim Stafford built an entire pop career out of sweaty Southern stories. I don’t mean sweaty in the sexual sense, though sometimes his songs were awfully flirty. I mean that Stafford specialized in the kind of music you expect to hear in a bayou cabin, where it’s always so humid that towels never get dry.
His biggest hit was the #3-peaking “Spiders and Snakes,” a story about two kids wooing each other in a swimming hole. It’s got a great, weird guitar lick and what sounds like a washboard. Plus, Stafford sings in a thick Southern accent that makes me buy the story he’s telling. I absolutely believe he has courted a girl by putting a live frog in her hands.
Before “Spiders and Snakes,” Stafford reached the Top 40 with “Swamp Witch,” a Southern Gothic tale about an mysterious old gal named Blackwater Hattie who lives in the woods near a town full of people who wish she would go away.
But here’s the thing: When a mysterious illness seizes her hateful neighbors, Hattie makes a potion that saves them. And once they’re all better, she only has one request. She asks them kindly to screw off and never speak to her again.
Hattie is fabulous. I wouldn’t be surprised if she partly inspired the lead character in Delia Owens’ novel Where the Crawdads Sing. I know for a fact that Hattie inspired a character in Thicker Than Water, a novel that my dad wrote back in the 90s. (It’s a really good book, and he’s currently writing a sequel. They’re both dark tales full of murder and revenge.)
Stafford’s performance makes “Swamp Witch” even better. He speaks all the lyrics in this husky, creepy way that suits the story, and his producer Lobo adds an excellent backdrop of alligator-friendly guitar and bass. If I had $4 billion, I’d turn this tune into a TV movie.
And speaking of story songs: Jim Stafford was briefly married to Bobbie Gentry, who wrote “Ode to Billie Joe” and “Fancy,” two of the greatest story songs of all time. I hope their mutual skillset fueled their attraction.
Thanks for the great suggestion, Gary!
I had a crush on a boy named Jim Stafford in high school, and my mom would always mention that he sang "I Don't Like Spiders & Snakes." (Definitely a different Jim Stafford from my crush.)