Bob Dylan Once Covered the Racist Song ‘Dixie’
TL;DR:
- Bob Dylan sang “Dixie” as a warm-up.
- The tune appeared on the soundtrack of a forgotten movie.
- Dylan’s recording of Dixie” is wrong on so many levels.
Bob Dylan covered “Dixie,” a song with a horribly racist history. In addition, a number of other rock stars performed “Dixie.” Notably, Dylan’s decision to record the song was a spontaneous part of a film shoot.
Bob Dylan covered ‘Dixie’ as part of a film shoot that was supposed to be spontaneous
Larry Charles directed the Sacha Baron Cohen comedies Borat, Brüno, and The Dictator. Before all that, he helmed the Dylan vehicle Masked and Anonymous. During a 2003 interview with The Austin Chronicle, Charles said he wanted the film to have some spontaneity. “In this case, I wanted to remain faithful to the script while still making a great movie from it, to reinvent that script as a synthesis of acting, cinematography, story, sound, genre, and theme,” he said.
Charles was asked if a scene of Dylan singing “Dixie” in the film was a warm-up that Charles decided to shoot. “It was, it was!” he said. “There was a ton of cool stuff like that, which people won’t see in the theatrical version. Hopefully, somewhere down the line, they will, because I think it has some definite historical value. I mean, Dylan doing part of Peggy Lee’s ‘Fever’ to get loose?
“The script was incredibly dense and specific, but I was fully committed to shooting every word of it while still trying to keep my antennae up,” he said. “A lot of critics have expressed this sense of the haphazard, but it wasn’t like that. Everything was intentional, but within that cognition and awareness and consciousness, I left room for the spontaneous. Shooting digital allows that.”
Why ‘Dixie’ is and always was such an offensive song
“Dixie,” also known as “Dixie’s Land,” is a song with a horrid history. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica, it’s a minstrel show song penned by Daniel Decatur Emmett in 1859. It became an anthem for the Confederate States of America. It was even played at the inauguration of Confederate President Jefferson Davis on February 18, 1861.
Just like the Confederate battle flag, the tune “Dixie” was later used by proponents of segregation. It’s surprising that Dylan, who participated in the Civil Rights Movement, covered the tune.
Partly due to the popularity of the song, “Dixie” continues to be used as a nickname for the Southern United States. Given the song’s Confederate history, the use of the term in this context remains controversial.
Bob Dylan was not the only rock star to record the Confederate anthem
Sadly, Dylan is not the only singer to put “Dixie” in his repertoire. For example, Elvis Presley incorporated the song into his medley “An American Trilogy.” Elvis’ hit combines “Dixie” with the Union anthem “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” and some verses from the spiritual “All My Trials.” Lynyrd Skynyrd, a band who used Confederate iconography throughout their career, covered the song several times as well.
Fortunately for Dylan, both Masked an Anonymous and his cover of “Dixie” are forgotten today.
