Dixie

Origins

Ohio-born minstrel show composer Daniel Decatur Emmett claimed the copyright on "Dixie" in 1860. Despite that, by 1908, four years after Emmett's death - alternatively, during his lifetime - no fewer than 37 people had claimed the song as theirs.

Emmett himself often recounted his story of its composition, and the details varied. At different times Emmett said he had written "Dixie" in a few minutes, in a single night, and over a few days. An 1872 edition of the New York Clipper provides one of the earliest accounts, relating that on a Saturday night shortly after Emmett had been taken on as a songwriter for the Bryant's Minstrels, Jerry Bryant told him they would need a new walkaround by the following Monday. By this account, Emmett shut himself inside his New York apartment and wrote the song that Sunday evening. The playbill for Jerry Bryant's Minstrel Show dated Monday, April 4, 1859, lists the first performance of "Dixie's Land" at Mechanics' Hall, New York.

Other details are given in later accounts. In one, Emmett said "Suddenly... I jumped up and sat down at the table to work. In less than an hour, I had the first verse and chorus. After that it was easy." In another version, Emmett stared out at the rainy evening and thought, "I wish I was in Dixie." Then, "Like a flash the thought suggested the first line of the walk-around, and a little later the minstrel, fiddle in hand, was working out the melody" (a different story has it that Emmett's wife uttered the famous line). Yet another variant, dated to 1903, further changes the details: "I was standing by the window, gazing out at the drizzly, raw day, and the old circus feeling came over me. I hummed the old refrain, 'I wish I was in Dixie', and the inspiration struck me. I took my pen and in ten minutes had written the first verses with music. The remaining verses were easy." In his final years, Emmett even said he had written the song years before he had moved to New York. An article in The Washington Post supports this, giving a composition date of 1843. It is also suggested that 'Dixie's Land' refers to a Long Island named for owner John Dixie, who befriended slaves who worked on his farm until slavery was abolished in New York state.

Emmett published "Dixie" (under the title "I Wish I Was in Dixie's Land") on June 21, 1860, through Firth, Pond & Co. in New York. The original manuscript has been lost; extant copies were made during Emmett's retirement, starting in the 1890s. Emmett's tardiness registering the copyright for the song allowed it to proliferate among other minstrel groups and variety show performers. Rival editions and variations multiplied in song books, newspapers and broadsides. The earliest of these that is known today is a copyrighted edition for piano from the John Church Company of Cincinnati, published on June 26, 1860. Other publishers attributed the song to obviously made-up names, such as "Jerry Blossom" and "Dixie, Jr." among others. The most serious challenge to Emmett's claim to the song during his lifetime came from Southerner William Shakespeare Hays; Hays attempted to prove his allegations through a Southern historical society, but died before they could produce any conclusive evidence.

Analysis

Structure

"Dixie" is structured into five two-measure groups of alternating verses and refrains, following an AABC pattern. As originally performed, a soloist or small group stepped forward and sang the verses, and the whole company answered at different times; the repeated line "look away" was probably one part sung in unison like this. As the song became popular, the audience likely joined the troupe in singing the chorus. Traditionally, another eight measures of unaccompanied fiddle playing followed, coming to a partial close in the middle; since 1936, this part has rarely been printed with the sheet music.

The song was traditionally played at a tempo slower than the one usually played today. Rhythmically, the music is "characterized by a heavy, nonchalant, inelegant strut," and is in duple meter, which makes it suitable for both dancing and marching. "Dixie" employs a single rhythmic motive (two sixteenth note pickups followed by a longer note), which is integrated into long, melodic phrases. The melodic content consists primarily of arpeggiations of the tonic triad, firmly establishing the major tonality. The melody of the chorus emulates natural inflections of the voice (particularly on the word "away"), and may account for some of the song's popularity.

According to musicologist Hans Nathan, "Dixie" resembles other material that Dan Emmett wrote for Bryant's Minstrels, and in writing it, the composer drew on a number of earlier works. The first part of the song is anticipated by other Emmett compositions, including "De Wild Goose-Nation" (1844), itself a derivative of "Gumbo Chaff" (1830s) and ultimately an 18th-century English song called "Bow Wow Wow". The second part is possibly related to other material, most likely Scottish folk songs. The chorus follows portions of "Johnny Roach," an Emmett piece from earlier in 1859.

As with other blackface material, performances of "Dixie" were accompanied by dancing. The song is a walkaround, which originally began with a few minstrels acting out the lyrics, only to be joined by the rest of the company (a dozen or so individuals for the Bryants). As shown by the original sheet music (see below), the dance tune used with "Dixie" by Bryant's Minstrels, who introduced the song on the New York stage, was "Albany Beef", an Irish-style reel later included by Dan Emmett in an instructional book he co-authored in 1862. Dancers probably performed between verses, and a single dancer used the fiddle solo at the end of the song to "strut, twirl his cane, or mustache, and perhaps slyly wink at a girl on the front row".

Lyrics

Countless lyrical variants of "Dixie" exist, but the version attributed to Dan Emmett and its variations are the most popular. Emmett's lyrics as they were originally intended reflect the hostile mood of many white Southerners in the late 1850s towards increasing abolitionist sentiments in the Northern United States. The song presented the point of view, common to minstrelsy at the time, that slavery in the United States was a positive good. The character of the pining slave had been used in minstrel tunes since the early 1850s, including Emmett's "I Ain't Got Time to Tarry" and "Johnny Roach". The fact that "Dixie" and its precursors were dance tunes only further made light of the subject. In short, "Dixie" made the case, more strongly than any previous minstrel tune had, that African Americans ought to be enslaved. This was accomplished through the song's protagonist, who, speaking in an exaggerated black dialect, implies that despite his freedom, he is homesick for the slave plantation he was born on.

The lyrics use many common phrases found in minstrel tunes of the day—"I wish I was in ..." dates to at least "Clare de Kitchen" (early 1830s), and "Away down south in ..." appears in many more songs, including Emmett's "I'm Gwine ober de Mountain" (1843). The second stanza clearly echoes "Gumbo Chaff" from the 1830s: "Den Missus she did marry Big Bill de weaver / Soon she found out he was a gay deceiver." The final stanza rewords portions of Emmett's own "De Wild Goose-Nation": "De tarapin he thot it was time for to trabble / He screw aron his tail and begin to scratch grabble." Even the phrase "Dixie's land" had been used in Emmett's "Johnny Roach", performed earlier in February 1859. However, his "Dixie" would immortalize the term.

While "Dixie" evolved and took many forms, with performers frequently adding their own verses or parodic alterations, the chorus largely remained unchanged. Today, the most widely recognized version of "Dixie" is often sung in standard English and focuses on the chorus, which has become emblematic of the song. The first verse and chorus, in their best-known non-dialect form, are as follows:

As with other minstrel material, "Dixie" entered common circulation among blackface performers, and many of them added their own verses or altered the song in other ways. Emmett himself adopted the tune for a pseudo-African American spiritual in the 1870s or 1880s.

Both Union and Confederate composers produced war versions of the song during the American Civil War. These variants standardized the spelling and made the song more militant, replacing the slave scenario with specific references to the conflict or to Northern or Southern pride. This Confederate verse by Albert Pike is representative:

Reception

Bryant's Minstrels premiered "Dixie" in New York City on April 4, 1859, as part of their blackface minstrel show. The walkaround was billed as a "plantation song and dance". It was a runaway success, and the Bryants quickly made it their standard closing number.

"Dixie" quickly gained wide recognition and status as a minstrel standard, and it helped rekindle interest in plantation material from other troupes, particularly in the third act. It became a favorite of Abraham Lincoln and was played during his campaign in 1860. The New York Clipper wrote that it was "one of the most popular compositions ever produced" and that it had "been sung, whistled, and played in every quarter of the globe". Buckley's Serenaders performed the song in London in late 1860, and by the end of the decade, it had found its way into the repertoire of British sailors. As the American Civil War broke out, one New Yorker wrote, "'Dixie' has become an institution, an irrepressible institution in this section of the country ..."

The Rumsey and Newcomb Minstrels brought "Dixie" to New Orleans in March 1860; the walkaround became the hit of their show. That April, Mrs. John Wood sang "Dixie" in a John Brougham burlesque called Po-ca-hon-tas, or The Gentle Savage, increasing the song's popularity in New Orleans. On the surface "Dixie" seems an unlikely candidate for a Southern hit; it has a Northern composer, stars a black protagonist, is intended as a dance song, and lacks any of the patriotic bluster of most national hymns and marches. Had it not been for the atmosphere of sectionalism in which "Dixie" debuted, it might have faded into obscurity. Nevertheless, the refrain "In Dixie Land I'll took my stand / To lib an die in Dixie", coupled with the first verse and its sanguine picture of the South, struck a chord. Woods's New Orleans audience demanded no fewer than seven encores.

The New Orleans publisher P. P. Werlein took advantage and published "Dixie" in New Orleans. He credited music to J. C. Viereck and Newcomb for lyrics. When the minstrel denied authorship, Werlein changed the credit to W. H. Peters. Werlein's version, subtitled "Sung by Mrs. John Wood," was the first "Dixie" to do away with the faux black dialect and misspellings. The publication did not go unnoticed, and Firth Pond & Co. threatened to sue. The date on Werlein's sheet music precedes that of Firth, Pond & Co.'s version, but Emmett later recalled that Werlein had sent him a letter offering to buy the rights for $5. In a New York musical publishers' convention, Firth, Pond & Co. succeeded in convincing those present that Emmett was the composer. In future editions of Werlein's arrangement, Viereck is merely credited as "arranger".

Recordings

Early recordings of the song include band versions by Issler's Orchestra (c. 1895), Gilmore's Band (1896), and the Edison Grand Concert Band (1896), and a vocal version by George J. Gaskin (1896).

The Norman Luboff Choir recorded it for the 1956 album Songs of the South. This version was used on numerous sign-ons and sign-offs for Southern US TV and radio stations, including WRAL-TV, WBBR, WQOK and WALT.

Legacy

"Dixie" slowly re-entered Northern repertoires, mostly in private performances. New Yorkers resurrected stories about "Dixie" being a part of Manhattan, thus reclaiming the song for themselves. The New York Weekly wrote, "... no one ever heard of Dixie's land being other than Manhattan Island until recently, when it has been erroneously supposed to refer to the South, from its connection with pathetic negro allegory." In 1888 the publishers of a Boston songbook included "Dixie" as a "patriotic song," and in 1895 the Confederate Veterans' Association suggested a celebration in honor of "Dixie" and Emmett in Washington as a bipartisan tribute.

However, "Dixie" was still most strongly associated with the South. Northern singers and writers often used it for parody or as a quotation in other pieces to establish a person or setting as Southern. For example, African Americans Eubie Blake and Noble Sissle quoted "Dixie" in the song "Bandana Days" for their 1921 musical Shuffle Along. In 1905 the United Daughters of the Confederacy mounted a campaign to acknowledge an official Southern version of the song (one that would purge it forever of its African American associations). Although they obtained the support of the United Confederate Veterans and the United Sons of Confederate Veterans, Emmett's death the year before turned sentiments against the project, and the groups were ultimately unsuccessful in having any of the 22 entries universally adopted. The song was played at the dedication of Confederate monuments like Confederate Private Monument in Centennial Park, Nashville, Tennessee, on June 19, 1909.

As African Americans entered minstrelsy, they exploited the song's popularity in the South by playing "Dixie" as they first arrived in a Southern town. According to Tom Fletcher, a black minstrel of the time, it tended to please those who might otherwise be antagonistic to the arrival of a group of black men.

Still, "Dixie" was not rejected outright in the North. An article in the New York Tribune, c. 1908, said that "though 'Dixie' came to be looked upon as characteristically a song of the South, the hearts of the Northern people never grew cold to it. President Lincoln loved it, and to-day it is the most popular song in the country, irrespective of section." As late as 1934, the music journal The Etude asserted that "the sectional sentiment attached to Dixie has been long forgotten; and today it is heard everywhere—North, East, South, West."

Modern interpretations

Since the beginning in the Civil rights movement in the 1950s and 1960s, African Americans have frequently criticised "Dixie", saying it is a racist relic of the Confederacy and a reminder of decades of white domination and segregation. This position was amplified when white opponents to civil rights began answering songs such as "We Shall Overcome" with the song "Dixie".

The earliest of these protests came from students of Southern universities, where "Dixie" was a staple of a number of marching bands. Similar protests have since occurred at the University of Virginia, the Georgia Institute of Technology, and Tulane University. In 1968, the President of the University of Miami banned the song from its band's performances.

The debate has since moved beyond student populations. Members of the 75th United States Army Band protested "Dixie" in 1971. In 1989, three black Georgia senators walked out when the Miss Georgia Sweet Potato Queen sang "Dixie" in the Georgia chamber. Some musicologists have challenged the song as racist. For example, Sam Dennison writes that "Today, the performance of 'Dixie' still conjures visions of an unrepentant, militarily recalcitrant South, ready to reassert its aged theories of white supremacy at any moment.... This is why the playing of 'Dixie' still causes hostile reactions."

Supporters consider the song a part of the patriotic American repertoire on a par with "America the Beautiful" and "Yankee Doodle". For example, Chief Justice William Rehnquist regularly included "Dixie" in his annual sing-along for the 4th Circuit Judicial Conference in Virginia. However, its performance prompted some African American lawyers to avoid the event.

Campaigns against "Dixie" and other Confederate symbols have been experienced by some working-class white Southerners as contributing to a sense of political ostracism and marginalization. Confederate heritage groups and literature proliferated in the late 1980s and early 1990s in response to criticism of the song. Journalist Clint Johnson calls modern opposition to "Dixie" "an open, not-at-all-secret conspiracy" and an example of political correctness. Johnson believes that modern versions of the song are not racist and simply reinforce that the South "extols family and tradition". Other supporters, such as former State Senator Glenn McConnell of South Carolina, have called the attempts to suppress the song cultural genocide.

In popular culture

The song added a new idiom to the American lexicon, whistling Dixie, meaning "to "engage in unrealistically rosy fantasizing". An example provided by The American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language is, "If you think mass transportation is going to replace the automobile I think you're whistling Dixie."

"Dixie" is sampled in the film scores of a great many American feature films, often to signify Confederate troops and the American Civil War. For example, Max Steiner quotes the song in the opening scene of his late 1930s score to Gone with the Wind as a down-beat nostalgic instrumental to set the scene and Ken Burns makes use of instrumental versions in his 1990 documentary The Civil War. In 1943, Bing Crosby's film Dixie (a biopic of Dan Emmett) features the song and it formed the centerpiece of the finale. Crosby never recorded the song commercially.

The soundtracks of cartoons featuring Southern characters like Foghorn Leghorn often play "Dixie" to quickly set the scene. On the television series The Dukes of Hazzard, which takes place in a fictional county in Georgia, the musical car horn of the "General Lee" plays the initial twelve notes of the melody from the song. Sacks and Sacks argue that such apparently innocent associations only further serve to tie "Dixie" to its blackface origins, as these comedic programs are, like the minstrel show, "inelegant, parodic [and] dialect-ridden". On the other hand, Poole sees the "Dixie" car horn as another example of the song's role as a symbol of "working-class revolt".

Performers who choose to sing "Dixie" today usually remove the black dialect and combine the song with other pieces. For example, René Marie's jazz version mixes "Dixie" with "Strange Fruit", a Billie Holiday song about a lynching. Mickey Newbury's "An American Trilogy" (often performed by Elvis Presley) combines "Dixie" with the Union's "Battle Hymn of the Republic" and the negro spiritual "All My Trials".

For many white Southerners, "Dixie," like the Confederate flag, is a symbol of Southern heritage and identity. Until somewhat recently, a few Southern universities including the University of Mississippi maintained the "Dixie" fight song, coupled with the Rebel mascot and the Confederate battle flag school symbol, which led to protests. Confederate heritage websites regularly feature the song, and Confederate heritage groups routinely sing "Dixie" at their gatherings. In his song "Dixie on My Mind," country musician Hank Williams Jr. cites the absence of "Dixie" on Northern radio stations as an example of how Northern culture pales in comparison to its Southern counterpart.