One of the member activities in the Minnesota Association of Songwriters is taking part of song challenges: to write a song based on certain criteria.

Since I awoke this activity as vice president of the group, I figured I best take part in it.

The challenge I cooked up for the group was writing a song entitled, Mississippi Moon.

It needed to be a solo write, no cowriting.

It also needed to have a specific chord pattern in it. The chord pattern was taken randomly.

So random in fact, I took my cell phone number, removed the 7’s and 0’s out of it, and the remaining numbers served as the Nashville numbering for the chord pattern to be included somewhere in the song.

When I sat down to write Mississippi Moon, I thought…

Maybe it should be about Kiln, Mississippi. Once known as the capital of illegal moonshine during the prohibition days.

Or, maybe it should be about a quaint lover’s café in someplace like Gulfport, Ocean Springs, or Biloxi.

Or, maybe it should be about two lover’s skinny dipping on the banks of the Mississippi.

Out of the ideas bouncing around, a towboat on the Mississippi River kept pushing its way to the front.

I started watching YouTube videos of various river pilots and crew. It actually became quite interesting.

I didn’t realize just how much freight they can haul.

First, towboats are not tug boats. Sometimes they are called pusher boats, but tug boats have a different purpose.

Often times tugs are used to guide large ships to port, and even sometimes help towboats flank their freight around tricky bends in the river.

Towboats don’t tow the barges, they push them. The name towboat has to do with the name of the barges strung together, a tow.

Some towboats have three engines running three props, often called triple screws.

These screws are powered with as much as tens of thousands of horse power.

They’ll move a tow (set of barges) 8 barges wide by 6 long, or sometimes 6 wide and 7 long loaded with all manner of freight.

In feet, we’re talking as much as 280 feet wide and as long as 1,400 long.

Including the length of the towboat, the total length can be as much as 1,600 feet long, well over a quarter of a mile, taking up as much as 6 acres of water.

These are massive freights being pushed up and down the freight rivers in the USA, the Mississippi River one of the most notable.

And since the Old Muddy is a few short minutes from where I live, it fit perfect for the song.

I started watching YouTube videos by a river pilot calling himself Mark Twain. Then I saw videos by my song’s character, Towboat Toby.

Toby Clarkson, I found, actually lives in the Smokey Mountains. Not Baton Rouge as in my song.

Toby does his one-month shift on the river, then heads home for 28-days or so, then rinse and repeating it.

Happily, Toby is alive and well in real life, but I killed him off in my song.

Sorry Toby.

And well, is he really dead in the song?

You’ll have to listen and find out.

While watching the videos, I saw news clips of riverboat pilots which went down with their towboat. Sadly, a few never made it out.

I guess this song is a bit of a tribute to them.

A song which, a short while ago never existed.

So here’s a “dirt roads version” of the song.

Thanks to Towboat Toby, I borrowed a few audio snippets from a few of his videos to get us started.

Mississippi Moon

I’m Towboat Toby out’a Baton Rouge
Pushing 40 barges with a triple screw
Headed north for Cairo Illinois
Flankin’ banks at 10,000 horse
Dodging skiffs and bars of course
Smell that river… man it’s a beautiful night
And look right there, ain’t that quite a view
That’s my Mississippi, Mississippi moon

[Chorus]
No matter where I roam in this old world
My pilot house and crew are always here
Back here on the river
Pushing 46,000 ton
And to get back here all I got to do
Is see my Mississippi, Mississippi moon

Wilkerson Point’s lyin’ dead ahead
That’s one wicked piece of riverbed
It’ll throw your tow when the river’s floodinghigh
It pulled us under in a massive fit
My crew got out, some say I didn’t
Somethin’ ‘bout that story ain’t quite right
I’m doing fine aboard The Déjà Vu
‘Neath my Mississippi … Mississippi moon

[Repeat chorus]

They say old river pilots never die
When they go down with their tow
I reckon there’s a bit
Of truth to that old myth
Guess that one’s best left up to you
‘Neath my Mississippi … Mississippi moon

[Repeat chorus]

I come back to the river
Every time they make this run
To get me here all they got to do
Is see that Mississippi… Mississippi moon
To get me here all they got to do
Is see that Mississippi… Mississippi moon