Me neither.
Well, I’ve been known to play both Dixie and the Battle Hymn of the Republic, and other patriotic songs besides…but you do have to pick your time.
I never want my playing to be insulting or offensive to the listener, so, depending upon the audience and the circumstance, there are times that either Dixie or the Battle Hymn might not be appropriate.
Typically, though, if I don’t feel that it’s right to play Dixie, I won’t play the Battle Hymn either.
But that’s just me.
–James
Here’s another cheerful song to the strains of which
people went off to die. From the Mexican Revolution (by way of wiki):
The lyrics consist of independent verses, often improvised. It is similar to Yankee Doodle, The Burning of the School or On Top of Old Smoky. One typical and most familiar verse is as follows:
La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
marijuana para fumar
English
The cockroach, the cockroach
Can’t walk anymore
Because it doesn’t have, because it’s lacking
marijuana to smoke
The reference to marijuana arose during a period of time—approximately the time of the Mexican Revolution—when the word cucaracha was also a slang term for marijuana or a marijuana cigarette stub (hence the term “roach” in American slang).
Another example:
La cucaracha, la cucaracha
Ya no puede caminar
Porque no tiene, porque le falta
La patita principal.
English
The cockroach, the cockroach
Can’t walk anymore
Because it doesn’t have, because it’s lacking
The front leg
During the Mexican Revolution, rebel and government forces alike invented political lyrics. In some versions, the cockroach is President Victoriano Huerta, who was a notorious drunk, and considered a villain and traitor due to his part in the death of revolutionary President Francisco Madero. They may include lines like:
En el norte vive Villa
En el sur vive Zapata
Lo que quiero es venganza
Por la muerte de Madero
(English)
In the north lives Villa,
In the south lives Zapata
What I want is revenge
For the death of Madero
Well, most “marching off to war” songs tended to be bright and happy with lots of hurrahs - it was a lot easier to get people marching off to war that way!
For example:
Over There
Over there, over there!
Send the word, send the word, over there!
That the Yanks are coming, the Yanks are coming,
The drums rum-tumming ev’rywhere!
So prepare, say a prayer, send the word, send the word to beware!
We’ll be over, we’re coming over,
And we won’t come back 'til it’s over Over There!
You mean “John Brown’s Body”?
Many songs have many different backgrounds. It adds an interesting element to these songs. Should a person be concerned about the other versions of “Turkey in the straw”, a song that is now used on ice cream trucks, and sampled in at least one rap tune? And what about Tramp, Tramp, Tramp? A POW song sang both in the North and the South now known better for it’s newer lyrics. Or what about about “When Johnnie comes Marching home”? now almost a joke due to it’s association with ants marching. “The Bonnie blue flag” used the melody of “The Irish Jaunting Car”, but I couldn’t tell you what either sound like. Do many people even know what many of the confederate songs are?
To me the history and context of a song makes it interesting to me, and if I eliminated the ones that have a questionable past, I would have few songs to choose from.
OK here’s some historical background. Not endearing.
wiki on dixie
Countless lyrical variants of “Dixie” exist, but the version attributed to Dan Emmett and its variations are the most popular.[4] Emmett’s lyrics as they were originally intended reflect the mood of the United States in the late 1850s toward growing abolitionist sentiment. The song presented the point of view, common to minstrelsy at the time, that slavery was overall a positive institution. 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 are dance tunes only further made light of the subject.[13] In short, “Dixie” made the case, more strongly than any previous minstrel tune had, that slaves belonged in bondage.[14] This was accomplished through the song’s protagonist, who, in comic black dialect, implies that despite his freedom, he is homesick for the plantation of his birth:
I wish I was in de land ob cotton,
Old times dar am not forgotten;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
In Dixie Land whar I was born in,
Early on one frosty mornin,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
The remaining verses drift into the common minstrel idiom of a comical plantation scenario, “supposedly [depicting] the gayer side of life for slaves on Southern plantations”:[15]
Old Missus marry “Will-de-weaber,”
Willium was a gay deceaber;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
But when he put his arm around’er,
He smilled as fierce as a forty-pound’er,
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
The final verse mixes nonsense and dance steps with the freed-slave scenario:
Dar’s buck-wheat cakes an ‘Ingen’ batter,
Makes you fat or a little fatter;
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.
Den hoe it down an scratch your grabble,
To Dixie land I’m bound to trabble.
Look away! Look away! Look away! Dixie Land.[16]
Fascinating- give us more “behind the music” info-
please… 
but, see, Jim - that goes back to my first post on the subject.
You play it, but you also talk about the history of the song. Playing it doesn’t say you are “for” slavery, playing it is a small history lesson.
We often play “Wayfaring Stranger”. Here in this city, where there is a huge history of the Underground Railroad, where many houses had hidden areas in the basement, and were we, the taxpayer have spent millions on the “Freedom Center” - people have NO idea of the background of that song. That’s sad.
Tell me. ( I like to play that one on occasion at church as a communion hymn
or a congregational hymn if the rest of the music matches)
You know, I have been known to play “Amazing Grace” when asked. I’ve had the sad occasion to play it on fife at a funeral.
I am not Christian.
Should I therefore not play this tune? Does Christianity “own” this tune, or has it become a common and iconic touchstone of an entire culture?
The tune “Amazing Grace” is the property of mankind, regardless of its history.
Ditto for Dixie.
–James
Neither am I a Christian, but I don’t see Christianity as
reprehensible. And of course Amazing Grace is about
something wonderful.
But I guess I would be disingenuous to say that I
feel as inclined to play a tune that in fact championed
something despicable. And of course music does mean
something, it can have powerful associations, the nature
of the beast, why it got enlisted for this or that cause
to begin with.
I guess I think there are limits. If there were famous
Nazi songs, rousing good stuff, I do think I would have considerable
disinclination performing them.
There were songs the SS sang, I believe, with
words like
When from our bayonets Jewish blood is dripping,
The goings smooth, the goings twice as smooth…
Missy’s point about explaining the history is a good one,
but I don’t have that opportunity.
It’s interesting that this issue is quite alive today.
Wiki writes:
“Dixie” is sometimes considered offensive, and its critics link the act of singing it to sympathy for the concept of slavery in the American South. Its supporters, on the other hand, view it as a legitimate aspect of Southern culture and heritage and the campaigns against it as political correctness and even cultural genocide.
view it as a legitimate aspect of Southern culture and heritage and the campaigns against it as political correctness and even cultural genocide.
I can agree with that. Around here the confederate flag is very common, as decoration on stuff as much or more than flown as a flag. I seriously doubt that very many of those who sport the thing , in what ever fashion, are even thinking of the issue of slavery, but view it more as a “southern” emblem.
Well, of course, I do see many (but certainly not all) parts of Christianity as being both reprehensible and horrible. But that is a subject for another board. 
Jim, I don’t know what to tell you about Dixie. If you don’t like it, just don’t play it–I just don’t see how you can go wrong with that approach.
As for those who want to play it–yes, slavery was a horrible evil. I’m glad it’s gone, and I don’t know very many people at all who aren’t.
But there was much about the South that was (and remains) good. And that is what Dixie and other Southern patriotic songs speak to in the heart for those who understand that slavery was only the smallest part of what defined the South.
So don’t play it if you don’t want to…but you might think about giving the benefit of the doubt to those that do.
–James
Thanks for the conversation. I’m not not giving the benefit of the doubt
for those that play Dixie. I guess I’ll do requests.
I’ll jump in here with a few things to think over.
First, the context of Dixie was indeed a minstral song. Of course, we have to look at the time it was created. If we remove a song just because of it being unpolitic from our perspective…Stephen Foster darn near goes out the window (and he was far from racist). Cole Porter…he’s got some doozies. The list goes on…
Is Dixie politically correct? Well, not in lyrics. Most associate it with the south, which they associate with slavery. Now, I’ll get to that, and disprove the validity of that association, but damned if that breaks the common association.
You say you see the cause of the South during the Cival War repugnant? When is the last time you studied that war Jim? The war was NEVER about slavery. That was just propaganda. The war was about state’s rights. The leadership of the Confederacy was largely made up of men who had freed their family slaves when taking over ownership of their estates (and kept them on as paid servants). Davis and Lee had made solid plans to buy the freedom of the slaves of the confederacy over a period of time, so the landowners weren’t bankrupt and the slaves were all set free. They considered it the only way to do the right thing and not destroy the economy of the south.
Lincoln, on the other hand, in his great freedom of slaves, ONLY freed them in the Southern states at war with the US. It did not free slaves in the stated controlled by the US or in the border states. It took the 13th Amendment to do that. It was PURE PROPAGANDA. As the war developed, the slavery issue was raised as Propaganda (sort of like WMDs) to get the people behind a very costly drawn out campaign.
So, the fight wasn’t about Slavery, but about the rights of the State over the rights of the Central Government. It was, in actuality, the first nail into the coffin of the Constitution.
Bear in mind, I’m a very liberal Northerner saying this.
scheky, good post.
What you are saying fits pretty well with what I have read in family records.
It really doesn’t matter, though; if Jim wants to link that song with slavery, it doesn’t bother me a bit.
I still maintain that the most logical approach is if you don’t like it just don’t play it…just don’t try to take away anyone else’s ability to play it, and it’s all good.
–James
Really good, well thought out response, Sheky. You said it a lot better than I could have. If Jim wants to have an incorrect opinion of a song, he can do it. It hurts no one but him.
When I think of somebody playing Southern music, I think of ZZ Top, Bocephus, Wayland Jennings and all of the old outlaws. It would never occur to me to ask someone to play Dixie, unless it was in the context of a historical reenactment.
Yes, we disagree about the historical facts.
Here’s wiki, first paragraph of ‘The Origins of the Civil War.’ My understanding of the history
is along these lines. Note the wiki piece is footnoted.
You might wish to supply some checkable references
to your claims about Lee’s plans and Davis’s. Here’s wiki:
‘The main explanation for the origins of the American Civil War was slavery, especially the issue of the expansion of slavery into the territories. States’ rights and the tariff issue became entangled in the slavery issue, and were intensified by it.[1] Other important factors were party politics, expansionism, sectionalism, economics and modernization in the Antebellum Period.’
As to Dixie, the words appear to do considerably more than help themselves to the
background of slavery. The problem is considerably more
than that the song fails to be politically correct. Again, wiki, part of what I quoted above.
‘The song presented the point of view, common to minstrelsy at the time, that slavery was overall a positive institution. 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 are dance tunes only further made light of the subject.[13] In short, “Dixie” made the case, more strongly than any previous minstrel tune had, that slaves belonged in bondage.[14] This was accomplished through the song’s protagonist, who, in comic black dialect, implies that despite his freedom, he is homesick for the plantation of his birth.’
Again, I am not opposed to people singing these songs or
performing the tunes.
Here’s wiki on the prospects of slavery collapsing or ending
in the South without a war. Your claims (uncredited)
that Lee and Davis planned to put an end to slavery
by buying all the slaves don’t jibe with this. Indeed the
plan sounds fantastic:
Several factors helped explain why slavery was not under serious threat of internal collapse from any moves for democratic change initiated from the South. First, given the opening of new territories in the West for white settlement, many non-slaveowners also perceived a possibility that they, too, might own slaves at some point in their life.[4]
Second, small free farmers in the South often embraced hysterical racism, making them unlikely agents for internal democratic reforms in the South.[5] The principle of white supremacy, accepted by almost all white southerners of all classes, made slavery seem legitimate, natural, and essential for a civilized society. White racism in the South was sustained by official systems of repression such as the “slave codes” and elaborate codes of speech, behavior, and social practices illustrating the subordination of blacks to whites. For example, the “slave patrols” were among the institutions bringing together southern whites of all classes in support of the prevailing economic and racial order. Serving as slave “patrollers” and “overseers” offered white southerners positions of power and honor. These positions gave even poor white southerners the authority to stop, search, whip, maim, and even kill any slave traveling outside his or her plantation. Slave “patrollers” and “overseers” also won prestige in their communities. Policing and punishing blacks who transgressed the regimentation of slave society was a valued community service in the South, where the fear of free blacks threatening law and order figured heavily in the public discourse of the period.
Third, many small farmers with a few slaves and yeomen were linked to elite planters through the market economy.[6] In many areas, small farmers depended on local planter elites for access to cotton gins, for markets, for their feed and livestock, and for loans. Furthermore, whites of varying social castes, including poor whites and “plain folk” who worked outside or at least in the periphery of the market economy, might be linked to elite planters through extensive kinship networks. For example, a poor white person might be the cousin of the richest plantation owner of his county and share the same militant support of slavery as his richer relatives.
The wikipedia article on the song Dixie is interesting.
I would say that most modern Southerners are unaware of the blackface
minstrelry origins of the song. Older ones may remember Tom and Jerry
or Droopy cartoons, wherein a character would have something blow
up in his face, leaving him looking like he was in blackface, then would
walk away whistling Dixie. But that’s probably the closest hint of the
association that most would have. I know it’s true in my case.
I’d bet if you ask most Southerners today to sing Dixie, they could get out
at most the first verse, and that would be in modern, largely grammatical
English, rather than the “comic black dialect” of the original. In fact, most
places I found on the Internet show the modernized first verse (though
they leave the next two verses intact). For example:
- I wish I was in the land of cotton,
old times there are not forgotten,
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie land.
In Dixie land where I was born in, early on a frosty mornin’,
Look away, look away, look away, Dixie land.
Chorus:
I wish I was in Dixie, hooray! Hooray!
In Dixie land I’ll take my stand, to live and die in Dixie,
Away, away, away down south in Dixie,
Away, away, away down south in Dixie.
If you leave it at that, it seems like a rousing cry to stand for your homeland,
instead of a push for slavery. I also have to say that, outside of its blackface
context, I don’t see much in the original lyrics to suggest that slaves belong
in bondage.
I admit I have wondered from time to time if “Look away, Dixie land” was
a Yankee composer’s way of chiding the South for ignoring its sins, but I
never bothered to research it.
I’ve never been entirely comfortable with the idea of the old blackface comedies…then again, I’m not entirely comfortable with “reality television,” either.
In much early music, the soprano and alto parts were sung by men, sometimes castrati. I find this objectionable in two ways: it reflected the horrible persecution which women endured at that time, and it also reflected the horrible and repugnant practice of castrating young boys to preserve their vocal range.
Yet I still listen to classical music.
If you removed all the music and all the art which related to repugnant acts by reprehensible people, you wouldn’t have much left.
A rose is still a rose, even if raised by a murderer; it is no less a rose by its association with awfulness.
–James