Ko-Ko Joe is the title of a song written and recorded by American country

Country music

Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...

 artist Jerry Reed

Jerry Reed

Jerry Reed Hubbard , known professionally as Jerry Reed, was an American country music singer, innovative guitarist, songwriter, and actor who appeared in more than a dozen films...

. It was released in August 1971 as the lead single from the album of the same name, Ko-Ko Joe. The song

Song

In music, a song is a composition for voice or voices, performed by singing.A song may be accompanied by musical instruments, or it may be unaccompanied, as in the case of a cappella songs...

 reached peaks of number 11 on the U.S. country

Hot Country Songs

Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by Billboard magazine in the United States.This 60-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly mostly by airplay and occasionally commercial sales...

 chart and number 51 on the Billboard Hot 100

Billboard Hot 100

The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...

 and was the follow-up to his country chart number 1 hit, When You're Hot, You're Hot

When You're Hot, You're Hot

"When You're Hot, You're Hot" is a 1971 crossover single written and recorded by Jerry Reed. The song was his most successful on the country charts peaking at number one for five weeks. "When You're Hot, You're Hot" also was Jerry Reed's second song to cross over to the Top 40, peaking at number...

.

Content

The song, composed by Reed himself

Songwriter

A songwriter is an individual who writes both the lyrics and music to a song. Someone who solely writes lyrics may be called a lyricist, and someone who only writes music may be called a composer...

, begins with the description of a man living on the banks of the Etowah River

Etowah River

The Etowah River is a waterway that rises northwest of Dahlonega, Georgia, north of Atlanta. Its name is the Cherokee version of the original Muskogee word Etalwa, which means a "trail crossing". On Matthew Carey's 1795 map the river was labeled "High Town River"...

, (as Reed calls it "cottonmouth country

Agkistrodon piscivorus

Agkistrodon piscivorus is a venomous snake, a species of pit viper, found in the southeastern United States. Adults are large and capable of delivering a painful and potentially fatal bite. When antagonized they will stand their ground by coiling their bodies and displaying their fangs...

"). As the locals seem to tell it

Folklore

Folklore consists of legends, music, oral history, proverbs, jokes, popular beliefs, fairy tales and customs that are the traditions of a culture, subculture, or group. It is also the set of practices through which those expressive genres are shared. The study of folklore is sometimes called...

, he's a long-haired, dirty-clothed survivalist

Self-sufficiency

Self-sufficiency refers to the state of not requiring any outside aid, support, or interaction, for survival; it is therefore a type of personal or collective autonomy...

 who drinks homemade brew

Moonshine

Moonshine is an illegally produced distilled beverage...

 and eats exotic meats. He is ostracized by these same locals who think of him as both a bum

Homelessness

Homelessness describes the condition of people without a regular dwelling. People who are homeless are unable or unwilling to acquire and maintain regular, safe, and adequate housing, or lack "fixed, regular, and adequate night-time residence." The legal definition of "homeless" varies from country...

 and 'crazy'

Insanity

Insanity, craziness or madness is a spectrum of behaviors characterized by certain abnormal mental or behavioral patterns. Insanity may manifest as violations of societal norms, including becoming a danger to themselves and others, though not all such acts are considered insanity...

. Reminiscent of the 'maligned' character's 'redemption' found in Hank Williams' 1953 song, "Be Careful of Stones That You Throw" (in that case a woman

Woman

A woman , pl: women is a female human. The term woman is usually reserved for an adult, with the term girl being the usual term for a female child or adolescent...

), the third verse tells us about the day (one year before the song's telling), when the dam

Dam

A dam is a barrier that impounds water or underground streams. Dams generally serve the primary purpose of retaining water, while other structures such as floodgates or levees are used to manage or prevent water flow into specific land regions. Hydropower and pumped-storage hydroelectricity are...

 on the river burst, washing away everything in its path. We learn from the headlines of that day about a mother

Mother

A mother, mum, mom, momma, or mama is a woman who has raised a child, given birth to a child, and/or supplied the ovum that grew into a child. Because of the complexity and differences of a mother's social, cultural, and religious definitions and roles, it is challenging to specify a universally...

 who told of how Ko-Ko pulled her son

Son

A son is a male offspring; a boy or man in relation to his parents. The female analogue is a daughter.-Social issues regarding sons:In pre-industrial societies and some current countries with agriculture-based economies, a higher value was, and still is, assigned to sons rather than daughters,...

from the flood waters, saving the boy's life. Reed leaves it ambiguous as to whether Ko-Ko survived.

Chart performance

Chart (1971)	Peak position
U.S. Billboard Hot Country Singles	11
U.S. Billboard Hot 100	51
Canadian RPM Country Tracks	3
Canadian RPM Top Singles	33
Canadian RPM Adult Contemporary Tracks	26