South Carolina – Dixie – Song of the South

"Emmett's original words and music still bring people to their feet as no other song in America does. [Americans] stand in deference to the tradition of The Star Spangled Banner, but they rise to Dixie itself." - c. 1920

"Fast or slow, it's a beautiful song ... about a special place that has so much promise ... if only we can learn to walk in each other's shoes." - 2000

Composer, History

• The Sunday morn Dixie was born - Why Daniel Decatur Emmett wrote Dixie - includes unpublished first stanza and a musically rich version of Dixie - scroll down
  
• Brief biography of Daniel Decatur Emmett - Encyclopaedia Britannica
  
• Dixie - the word and the song - Encyclopaedia Britannica
• Dixie's origin - Letter to the editor published in the Richmond Dispatch - March 19, 1893
  
• Did Daniel Emmett learn Dixie from a black family in Ohio?
  
• Origin of the word Dixie - three possible theories
  
• Dixie's popularity through the Civil War
  
• Dixie reconstructed - how the song was received after the war
  
• Dixie and The Battle Hymn of the Republic - an early 20th Century British view
  
• Dixie in the Land of Brotherly Love - August 2000

Music, Lyrics

• Music of the American Civil War - includes a spirited long-play version of Dixie - my favorite!
  
• Image of "Dixie's Land" sheet music - image taken from United States Library of Congress
  
• Unpublished first stanza - scroll down
  
• Away down South in the land of traitors - Northern versions of Dixie - scroll down
  
• 12 songs about Dixie in their titles - includes history of song and composer, lyrics and even listen to the songs
  

Critics

• Dixie opposed - history of protests beginning in the 1950s
  
• Why Dixie shouldn't be played - black musicologists explain why Dixie shouldn't be played at a Pittsburg high school concert - 1998
  
• Lawyers criticize Chief Justice Renquist for singing Dixie - 1999