This is a hauntingly beautiful song about introspection, specifically about looking back at a relationship that started bad and ended so poorly, that the narrator wants to go back to the very beginning and tell himself to not even travel down that road. I believe that the relationship started poorly because of the lines:
"Take me back to the night we met:When the night was full of terrors: And your eyes were filled with tears: When you had not touched me yet"
So, the first night was not a great start, but the narrator pursued the relationship and eventually both overcame the rough start to fall in love with each other:
"I had all and then most of you"
Like many relationships that turn sour, it was not a quick decline, but a gradual one where the narrator and their partner fall out of love and gradually grow apart
"Some and now none of you"
Losing someone who was once everything in your world, who you could confide in, tell your secrets to, share all the most intimate parts of your life, to being strangers with that person is probably one of the most painful experiences a person can go through. So Painful, the narrator wants to go back in time and tell himself to not even pursue the relationship.
This was the perfect song for "13 Reasons Why"
I've seen the bright lights of Memphis
And the Commodore Hotel
And underneath a street lamp I met a Southern belle
Well she took me to the river, where she cast her spell
And in that Southern moonlight, she sang a song so well
If you'll be my dixie chicken, I'll be your Tennessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland
Well we made all the hot spots. My money flowed like wine
Then that low down Southern whiskey began to fog my mind
And I don't remember church bells or the money I put down
On the white picket fence and boardwalk of the house at the edge of town
But boy do I remember the strain of her refrain
The nights we spent together, and the way she called my name
If you'll be my dixie chicken, I'll be your Tennessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland
Well it's been a year since she ran away
Yes that guitar player sure could play
She always liked to sing along
She's always handy with a song
Then one night in the lobby of the Commodore Hotel
I chanced to meet a bartender who said he knew her well
And as he handed me a drink he began to hum a song
And all the boys there, at the bar, began to sign along
If you'll be my dixie chicken, I'll be your Tennessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland
And the Commodore Hotel
And underneath a street lamp I met a Southern belle
Well she took me to the river, where she cast her spell
And in that Southern moonlight, she sang a song so well
If you'll be my dixie chicken, I'll be your Tennessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland
Well we made all the hot spots. My money flowed like wine
Then that low down Southern whiskey began to fog my mind
And I don't remember church bells or the money I put down
On the white picket fence and boardwalk of the house at the edge of town
But boy do I remember the strain of her refrain
The nights we spent together, and the way she called my name
If you'll be my dixie chicken, I'll be your Tennessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland
Well it's been a year since she ran away
Yes that guitar player sure could play
She always liked to sing along
She's always handy with a song
Then one night in the lobby of the Commodore Hotel
I chanced to meet a bartender who said he knew her well
And as he handed me a drink he began to hum a song
And all the boys there, at the bar, began to sign along
If you'll be my dixie chicken, I'll be your Tennessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland
Lyrics submitted by slade
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Funny song. Everyone gets taken by this 'Tenessee Lamb!'
She's using her charms in order to seduce him into becoming her sugar daddy or "Dixie Chicken." Chicken being a slang for money.
She takes him along a whirlwind romance of sex and booze culminating in their quick marriage, and purchasing of real estate in the suburbs of Memphis (since she demands quality, it is probably not in West Memphis).
She eventually tires of him and leaves him for a musician.
He later discovers that she has run this scam on most of the greater Memphis area while he is drinking away his sorrows. After finding out the bartender and most of the male patrons at the Commodore Hotel Bar have been taken by this floozy. He forms an impromptu support group for angry cynical men.
Okay; so I've looked high and low 'round the net and have yet to find a definition of either "dixie chicken" or "tennessee lamb". So, humbly, I submit my understanding, which, being a northerner, a yankee, a FeatFan since the beginning, a man, who was brokenheartearted, by a southern woman, who knew no better and introduced me to the south through Austin, TX, which will always be one of my Meccas, here is my take.
A DixieChicken is not just, as so many claim, a guy in love/lust. A TennesseeLamb is not JUST a reciprocating gal. But it works in song and in general meaning and emotionality. KUDOS.
Without going too deep, there is some universal, pretty deep programing with women in the south, to find a sugar daddy. Let me be clear; I'm not judging; not my values, but, definitely, not judging.
I fell in love with a southern lady, PTSD, familial abused, in denial, and a transport who adopted southern culture like pancakes and butter/maple syrup. Never a second thought. Mebbe I should say, adopted like BBQ, biscuits'n'gravy and a whole lot else that is south'o'Mason/Dixon.
Here's the report. It is all about what you can do/provide for the lady/woman. If you can bring the bacon, she'll pretend to be whatever you want, cuz she doesn't know how to do differently. Gotta tell you, here, this is NOT my take on women; this is what one southern beauty showed me to be eerily universal in some quarters, that Lowell and Feat sang so poignantly, years ago and ever.
My lady was unequivocal, unembarrassed and totally had no idea about intimacy, committed relationship or empathy. In seven years in Texas, lots and lots of women friends, this was the norm, not the exception. I hope that this adds to some clarity 'bout what I believe Lowell was speaking to; certainly added to my sight, and deepened my love. Dixie Chicken--provider, do-er, alpha, nothing to do with personal, intimate connection; Tennessee Lamb--receiver, responder, pretender to your projections/fantasies, willing til you don't produce the original presumption; she, like a shark (and men do this, too), will move on, without looking back, for the next taste. Sorry to suggest a darker side to Lowell's sing'along, but, I'm pretty sure this is what he was talking about. If I'm the first person to put this on the net, I'm satisfied. If not; glad to be in apt company. Cheers (and don't be afraid to be a Dixie Chicken, as if you would be)
Haha, good meaning. This song is so good, more people need to hear it and comment.
A really great song with a funny story for the lyrics. Although not so funny if this had happen to you. Every time I hear the chorus though, all I can think about is the live version of "Crash Into Me" by Dave Matthews Band; cause he that in near the end.
I'm pretty sure the line goes "guess that guitar player should could play," listen to it again
I think you've all got it wrong. This song is it might be one of the most beautiful love songs ever written. It's a very simple song about love for a woman and the common love that we all have as men for a beautiful woman. That's the beauty of how the song was written, as the refrain of the song is a love sonnet to the woman that many men feel unending affection for in their hearts. It's not just that the songwriter loves that particular woman it's not that she's a whore and she's loved all the women in the bar. But it's that the way the man feels about the beautiful woman who he had love with is the same way that the men in the bar feel about beautiful women that they had love with. And that's what makes it so beautiful. Aside from the fact is great music is that it touches everyone's hearts in a very personal way. "All the boys"...feel that same love. And our friend Lowell managed to put that in a very beautiful song. ...And sing it to us, so thanks for that! You did a good thing. You son of a bitch.
Only problem is that there was never a Commodore Hotel in my fair city.
@MemphisBelle The Commodore Hotel is in LInden TN-on the way to Memphis, just south of Bucksnort TN. He was on his way to Memphis when he saw the hotel.
The Commodore Hotel is in LInden TN-on the way to Memphis, just south of Bucksnort TN. He was on his way to Memphis when he saw the hotel.
I don't believe any of the comments on the meaning of the terms Dixie Chicken and Tennessee Lamb. They are simply terms of affection, love names. And the Commodore Hotel? Sure it's in Memphis, the Memphis of the mind, the Memphis of the world of this song. It's every once grand and now run down establishments and patronized by working class men, like our story teller, who probably never owned a piece of real estate before a adventuress swept him up as her next sucker.