Dixie (song) - Composition and Copyright

Composition and Copyright

According to tradition, Ohio-born minstrel show composer Daniel Decatur Emmett wrote "Dixie" around 1859. Over his lifetime, Emmett often recounted the story of its composition, and details vary with each account. For example, in various versions of the story, Emmett claimed to have 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, claiming that on a Saturday night shortly after Emmett had been taken on as 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 flat and wrote the song that Sunday evening.

Other details emerge in later accounts. In one, Emmett claimed that "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 claimed to have written the song years before he had moved to New York. A Washington Post article supports this, giving a composition date of 1843.

Emmett published "Dixie" (under the title "I Wish I Was in Dixie's Land") on 21 June 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 songbooks, 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 26 June 1860. Other publishers attributed completely made-up composers with the song: "Jerry Blossom" and "Dixie, Jr.", among others. The most serious of these challenges during Emmett's lifetime came from Southerner William Shakespeare Hays; this claimant attempted to prove his allegations through a Southern historical society, but he died before they could produce any conclusive evidence. By 1908, four years after Emmett's death, no fewer than 37 people had claimed the song as theirs.

"Dixie" is the only song Emmett ever claimed to have written in a burst of inspiration, and analysis of Emmett's notes and writings shows "a meticulous copyist, spent countless hours collecting and composing songs and sayings for the minstrel stage . . . ; little evidence was left for the improvisational moment." The New York Clipper wrote in 1872 that " claim to authorship of 'Dixie' was and is still disputed, both in and out of the minstrel profession." Emmett himself said, "Show people generally, if not always, have the chance to hear every local song as they pass through the different sections of country, and particularly so with minstrel companies, who are always on the look out for songs and sayings that will answer their business." He claimed at one point to have based the first part of "Dixie" on "Come Philander Let's Be Marchin, Every One for His True Love Searchin", which he described as a "song of his childhood days". Musical analysis does show some similarities in the melodic outline, but the songs are not closely related. Emmett also credited "Dixie" to an old circus song. Despite the disputed authorship, Firth, Pond & Co. paid Emmett $300 for all rights to "Dixie" on 11 February 1861, perhaps fearing complications spurred by the impending Civil War.