Elton John - Dixie Lily Lyrics

Plowing through the wawta, with your whistles blowing. Down from Louisianer on a Vicksaburg run!!!! Love the pronounciations in this sentence!!!!! Love EJ!!!!

I saw him sing this live in the fall of 1995 at the Palace of Auburn Hills <3

One of Elton's perfect albums.

average Elton, fine by others' standards

Besides "Ticking" this is one of my favorite songs on the Caribou album. I have always wondered if this was a hold-over from "Tumbleweed Connection", it would fit right in.

Check out Grimsby fucking locks your socks off

The first time I ever heard this song, I thought Elton John was talking about "plowing through marijuana", right at 0:59

My favorite cut from Caribou!

What a blessing to us all, Bernie's fascination with the American West and South

Showboat coming up the river
See her lanterns flicker in the gentle breeze
I can hear the crickets singing in the evening
Old Dixie Lily moving past the cypress trees

My little boat she rocks easy
I've been catching catfish in the creek all day
Oh and I've never seen ladies like those on the big boats
Must be fancy breeding lets you live that way

Dixie Lily, chugging like a grand old lady
Paddles hitting home in the noonday sun
Ploughing through the water with your whistles blowing
Down from Louisiana on the Vicksburg run

Papa says that I'm a dreamer
Says them skeetas bit me one too many times
Oh but I never get lonesome living on the river
Watching old Lily leave the world behind

love the images the song conjures up, the old majestic south, God bless the lost dream!! c.s.a.

This song gets my stuff going

It gets my "stuff" going too, LOL!! Love this one.

Next to Waylon Jennings, Elton's my favorite country singer...

Fuck the Trump haters Fuck the Caribou haters

Always loved the guitar playing on this song.

across the missisipi river

cow-boy country

ELTON JOHN

Great song! Just with so many other great artists, some of their best material is maybe the less well known...songs that haven't been overplayed on radio etc. Like this country patische...Such a cool, cheerful, simple fun unpretensious song. The whole "Caribou" album is great! Very underrated...maybe abut from "Stinker" and "Ticking", all the songs are great :)

I am such a proponent of Elton doing a "Concert for the Diehards" to include the non radio standouts..for me, Talking Old Soldiers is one of Bernie's real masterpieces. This would have to be included.

great riff "

ehem, Pinball Wizard was not on the vinyl.

but it was included on CD remaster

The sax on this song (and "The B***h is Back") was performed by a young Lenny Pickett, who later on was a member of the Saturday Night Live house band. He also performed the sax solo on Katy Perry's "Last Friday Night (T.G.I.F.)" even though according to the promo video some people thought it was Kenny G. (who we did see in that video) when that solo came up.

I dunno...after all this time...i love listening to this music.  I don't know what's 'mediocre' about it at all.  This song, Grimsby, I've seen the Saucers, Pinky, You're So Static...they're all just so great to listen to.

Imagine, it "blew me away" first time round! I can remember exactly where I was when I took "Caribou" out of the bag and put it on the turntable - wow!

@RML Bobby D Thats because its good music . Not like the crap we see today

Every song on side 1 sounds like a hit single.

Davy Johnston was an underated guitar player for most,just listen to the man play here!!!

biollante62 agreed saw this band 74 and he was awesome live

As I've said before on here.....all the players on Elton's recordings don't get the musical credit they warrant. Johnstone, Caleb Quaye, and their bass players....I mean these tracks are full of incredibly good, mixed guitars with full embellishment and guitar effects pedals and production board knobs employed. Gus Dudgeon was the producer I believe on the early albums and he was excellent. Elton albums had these great guitar and keyboard sounds.....compression, overdrive, Leslie rotating speaker effect, delay, vibrato, they had it all going on.....only a guitar player can appreciate how good these recordings were.

This brings back childhood memories and I still enjoy listening to this album.

Oh that fancy breedin!!

Yell Help!!!

Really? Well, I'm glad you liked it. All I can say, however, is "Yikes!!" :o)

I thought RotW was one his best!

Agree. I saw him (them) in '74 (was 12) they did this song and for some reason it stood out as the main memory from that concert.

The problem was that Elton fired his band after Fantastic (except for Davey). Nigel Olson is an INCREDIBLE drummer and Dee was a fantastic bass player. IMO he never recovered from that stupid move!

I agree, Nigel and Dee (RIP) were such a good blend with everyone else. Ray ended up being a pretty good blend, but Elton should have never strayed from the original. Didn't Roger play drums before Nigel, back way in the day??

It´s so good to hear the old songs again. Brings a lot of memories. I keep all those old Elton-albums as Vinyl-LP´s. I´ll never give up listening to him!

an throwback to Elton's Tumbleweed Connection days, Elton did country rock before it came de rigueur, well done Elton....

This album brings back childhood memories along with DON'T SHOOT ME I'M ONLY THE PIANO PLAYER, GOODBYE YELLOW BRICK ROAD and CAPTAIN FANTASTIC... My brothers and I were huge EJ fans during his '70's heyday.

you all had great taste in music!

@iw32 I thought Caribou had a bunch of terrific songs on it. Not every one a home run, but several that are among my EJ favorites. I totally agree, however, about "Rock/ Westies" - I still recall the shock of disappointment I felt upon hearing that album after the staggering masterpiece which was "Captain Fantastic". I tried to convince myself it was an "okay" work - never succeeded, though.

another great and underrated song !

love this stuff

@stonycurtis101 this has to be referring to "Tiny Dancer": "Jesus freaks/out in the streets/handin' tickets out for God/looking back/she just laughs/the boulevard is not that bad", it bothers me a bit today also

thanks for posting these, got it when it came out, this one was playing in my head so had to hear!

awesome!!! he makes country platable for some...

@sjplwc Caribou is the only Elton John album I ever bought. Why? Because I love the B side! A friend of mine had the album and I fell in love with it. Never really cared for any of his other music. And yes, Bitch is Back is on this album.

WHAAAAAAAAA?????

Caribou has a bad reputation - even Elton apparently doesn't like it much - but what struck me about it when listening to it recently is how good it sounds to me. It's not quite at the level of "Yellow Brick Road" or "Captain Fantastic" but then not very many albums are.

CARIBOU is a great album as far as I am concerned,

@sjplwc

Do you ever shut up?

This should of been bigger than "Achy Breaky Heart."

@bothamyes One other thought - just speculation on my part, but I believe it was post Cap Fan (late 70's) that he really drove into the heavy drug usage. Again, not certain, but I wonder if that had anything to do with his artistic slide? He talks pretty openly about how bad things got for him at that time personally. It wouldn't be surprising to conclude his creative abilities were hampered at that time. If true, really a shame.

... (cnt'd frm below) devestation after the brilliance of Cap Fan when Rock of Westies arrived.Ugh.What a disappointmnt that was.By my lights, nt a great song on it. Some "okay" stuff at best. Frankly, I remember almost nothing about Blue Moves.And then, the .lonnnnnngggg slide into the relative EJ drought of the 80's.I DO like LittleJeannie and Guess that's Why They Call it the Blues, I admit.As a rule, however, following Cap Fan, and certainly after his throat surgery, he was never the same.

@bothamyes Interesting you say that Cap Fantastic album is a masterpiece ('75/'76?). The song Cap Fan is one of the lovliest pieces Elton and Bernie ever crafted - although, as a Christian, let me clarify I hate the knock against Jesus; sure wish that wasn't in the song - anyway, a gorgeous piece of music. His voice is at it's peak in that whole album. Someone Saved my Life Tonight? My goodness, it still gives me goosebumps. HOWEVER ... I recall like it was yesterday the devestation (cont'd) ...

This is a terrific little tune - I'm pleased to see so many others like it. I always got the impression this was widely considered a filler/throwaway song, but I always liked it a lot. Caribou is underrated - Pinky is one of my favorite EJ songs EVER - simply gorgeous. And Tickin' is also excellent. Sadly, Caribou is mainly known for the stupid (if catchy) Bitch is Back. (I think that is on Caribou, correct?)

@tata4noww You guys are so funny. You think just because you have a young Albert Lee playing snap Tele on this tune does NOT make it country.
but it is a great song!!!

@termsofusepolice I agree there are faults with Caribou, for me his weakest from his 70-6 golden era. It felt a bit half hearted. But i do think things really went wrong after Blue Moves, which was very interesting, tho it had mixed results there was still promise of possible musical directions- then he took time out and came back having taken a wrong turn at the crossroads. The new album The Union with Leon Russell is a return to form, after some good work in the last decade,

The Greatest Melody Writer Ever In Popular Music

Actually, country singer Roy Drusky took a cover of this song to number 45 on the country charts in 1974. I remember seeing him doing it on a Canadian TV show called Funny Farm (kind of Canada's answer to Hee Haw) back in the day!!

"I've been catchin the catfish in the creak all day."