“I Sang Dixie”
Dwight Yoakam
Written by Dwight Yoakam
Billboard
#1 (1 week)
February 25, 1989
My colleague Jonathan Keefe often talks about “radical empathy” as being a critical component of the best country music. I’m not sure there’s a record that better illustrates such radical empathy than “I Sang Dixie.”
It paints such a powerful picture: Yoakam on the streets of Los Angeles, as a Southern boy far from home dies in his arms. He sings Dixie as he cradles a rebel who lost his pride to the bottle, and who is now dying alone, surrounded by strangers who walk by without noticing his pain. Or maybe even judging it, not seeing the humanity in this dying man.
Yoakam makes two choices as a writer here that drive home his act of radical empathy.
First, we get no biographical details about the man to make him more sympathetic. More likely than not, a southern man dying homeless on the streets of L.A. in the eighties was a Vietnam veteran. Even without that detail, Yoakam could’ve easily talked about the man’s accomplishments or a family that he once had who loved him. Maybe an estranged wife or child. Anything to make his life more valuable than just an alcoholic dying on the street. By not adding any of those details, Yoakam deems them irrelevant to the man’s essential humanity. He’s away from home and he’s dying. Isn’t that enough for us to show compassion?
Second, Yoakam never makes this man’s tragedy about himself. Yes, the man utters a warning for him to go back to the south before it’s too late, but all that does is reinforce the connection between the two men, them both being sons of the south. Yoakam doesn’t respond to him or indicate that he’s leaving L.A. Until the final note, the spotlight is on this man. The kind of man who went unseen every day, when he wasn’t being jeered at or frowned upon.
Country music at its best tells the untold stories. It shines a light on the inner lives of those whose stories usually go untold, whether it’s “Workin’ Man Blues” or “Satin Sheets” or “Cafe On the Corner” or “Independence Day” or “Travelin’ Soldier.” Songs like these and songs like “I Sang Dixie” show the power of country music to act as a unifier, helping us to see and understand the lives and lived experiences of those who are different from us.
We need country music like that more than ever these days.
“I Sang Dixie” gets an A.
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I can’t recall if Dwight scored any Radio and Records #1s in the 90s but at least on the Billboard charts, it was “The Streets of Bakersfield” and “I Sang Dixie”, back-to-back singles that were the beginning and end of his list of chart-toppers. This song largely went down the memory hole to the point that even Yoakam’s biggest fans would likely guess 10 other songs before this one as his second chart-topper. I was pleased that my local country classics station put it on their recurrent playlist in the past year as it deserves a higher profile in Dwight’s set list.
It’s worth noting that I always felt this song’s weakest point is that it didn’t build upon the dying man’s identity to make him a more sympathetic figure, but you raise an excellent point that the song’s structure helps us appreciate the narrator even though the narrator never makes it about himself. A case could be made that this tactic is ultimately more satisfying than the approach by Craig Morgan in “Almost Home” where the dying man’s identity is much more clearly drawn. Ultimately, I don’t think most listeners would have connected the dots that the dying man was likely a homeless Vietnam vet so I can’t help but feel that that storytelling block was wasted on a mainstream audience, but then again the song went to #1 so maybe I’m not giving people enough credit. Any idea if this song was based on any personal experience by Dwight given that he was a Southern transplant living in LA?
Grade: A-
MarkMinnesota, Dwight scored 2 more #1 hits on Radio & Records in the 90’s: Ain’t That Lonely Yet and A Thousand Miles from Nowhere, both in the same year (1993) and both were covered in the Every #1 Country Single of the Nineties feature some time ago.
Thanks for the info. Glad Radio and Records helped bring two of his best to the top.
it’s an amazing song. Spot on review.
I loved this song from the first time I heard it – really don’t have anything more to say that this is an easy A
I don’t know why I never thought about any of this, at least consciously, but that’s insightful analysis. Not that I would have expected less!
To this day this song is my favorite Yoakam single. I say ”single” because even this album had songs that were right up there with this one in terms of quality, even if they weren’t quite on this level.
I do agree with the A rating. I loved the “Buenos Noches From a Lonely Room” album. It’s still my favorite of his incredible run of albums from 86-93. If you listen to the album it kinda follows a concept up until track 7 of love then loss to anger and ultimately murder.
THe only thing I’ll add to wheat’s already been posted is that i always thought of this song a little differently than the original review. I guess i already thought of it as an ultimate final act of love from a son to his dad..”Dad, i know life has dealt you a band hand, and i know why. I cant help you anymore or even fix your pain. But I can sing Dixie to you one last time…”
which is what he did.
Just my take.