In 1948, the Standard Oil Company commissioned this movie to promote their drilling expansion into several Louisiana bayous. It was sold as a documentary but is actually a docu-fiction as it is primarily propaganda to make the locals believe that drilling for oil in their back yards was good for them, when the opposite was true. Louisiana was exploited for its riches and left polluted, ugly, and poisoned.

The Louisiana Story

he was just “the boy he wasn’t given a name

his father was only “the father” and valued just the same

set in Cajun swampland about a boy and his raccoon

the good guys were the drillers making poor crackers rich too soon

the villain was an alligator who must have eaten the boy’s pet

river life was hard until the good old boys made them forget

the moral of the movie was drilling for oil was good

never mind the explosions or the black poison in the woods

money was the hero and damn the pristine swamp

standard oil should be praised for their awful damaging romp

this was not true story even though they wanted you to believe

back then we were gullible and this they could achieve

we feel for the raccoon and he’s a lot like us

oil is the alligator destroying land without a fuss

The Louisiana Story was praised in California at the ’48 awards

best writing was the nomination for the oil baron lords

the music won a Pulitzer but that was in ’49

filmed in black and white fictitious by design

looking backward is helpful and maybe we can learn

before all the land is polluted and our morals have all been burned