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The title track from Little Feat’s seminal 1973 album, was a crowd favorite when it was released, when Little Feat toured with it (as they did for the shows that produced the double-live Waiting for Columbus), and when Phish played it (covering that live release on 10/31/10).

Watch Dixie Chicken on YouTube Little Feat, ”Dixie Chicken” – 1977, London, England

The narrator had been hoodwinked into being the gentleman provider (the “Dixie chicken”) for a Southern belle. Initially a “Tennessee lamb,” she spent his money then ran away with a guitar player. When he goes to share his tale with a bartender – at the Commodore hotel, where he met her – he finds a room of past chickens who know the tune well enough to sing along.

Phish’s version, too, brought in a crowd, featuring Giovanni Hidalgo on percussion and Aaron Johnson, Stuart Bogie, Ian Hendrickson-Smith, Michael Leonhart and Eric Biondo on horns.

Watch Dixie Chicken on YouTube Phish, ”Dixie Chicken” – 10/31/10, Atlantic City, NJ

(George, Kibbee)
© Naked Snake Music (ASCAP)

I've seen the bright lights of Memphis
And the Commodore Hotel
Where underneath a street lamp I met a Southern belle
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 Tenessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland

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 or the house at the end 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 Tenessee 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
He 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 sing along

If you'll be my dixie chicken, I'll be your Tenessee lamb
And we can walk together down in dixieland
Down in dixieland