Welch and Rawlings have collaborated on seven critically acclaimed albums, five released under her name, and two released under the name Dave Rawlings Machine. Her 1996 debut, Revival, and the 2001 release Time (The Revelator), received nominations for the Grammy Award for Best Contemporary Folk Album. Her 2003 album, Soul Journey, introduced electric guitar, drums, and a more upbeat sound to their body of work. After a gap of eight years, she released a fifth studio album, The Harrow & The Harvest, in 2011, which was also nominated for a Grammy for Best Contemporary Folk Album.
Welch was an associate producer and performed on two songs of the soundtrack of the Coen brothers 2000 film O Brother, Where Art Thou?, a platinum album that won the Grammy Award for Album of the Year in 2002. She also appeared in the film attempting to buy a Soggy Bottom Boys record. Welch, while not one of the principal actors, did sing and provide additional lyrics to the Sirens song "Didn't Leave Nobody but the Baby." In 2018 she and Rawlings wrote the song "When a Cowboy Trades His Spurs for Wings" for the Coens' The Ballad of Buster Scruggs, for which they received a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Original Song. Welch has collaborated and recorded with Alison Krauss, Ryan Adams, Jay Farrar, Emmylou Harris, the Decemberists, Sam Phillips, Conor Oberst, Ani DiFranco, and Robyn Hitchcock.
Gillian Howard Welch was born on October 2, 1967 in New York City, and was adopted by Mitzie Welch (née Marilyn Cottle) and Ken Welch, comedy and music entertainers. Her biological mother was a freshman in college, and her father was a musician visiting New York City. Welch has speculated that her biological father could have been one of her favorite musicians, and she later discovered from her adoptive parents that he was a drummer. Alec Wilkinson of The New Yorker stated that "from an address they had been given, it appeared that her mother ... may have grown up in the mountains of North Carolina". When Welch was three, her adoptive parents moved to Los Angeles to write music for The Carol Burnett Show. They also appeared on The Tonight Show.
As a child, Welch was introduced to the music of American folk singers Bob Dylan, Woody Guthrie, and the Carter Family. She performed folk songs with her peers at the Westland Elementary School in Los Angeles. Welch later attended Crossroads School, a high school in Santa Monica, California. While in high school, a local television program featured her as a student who "excelled at everything she did."
Welch and Rawlings incorporate elements of early twentieth century music such as old time, classic country, gospel and traditional bluegrass with modern elements of rhythm and blues, rock 'n' roll, jazz, and punk rock. The New Yorker's Alec Wilkinson maintained their musical style is "not easily classified—it is at once innovative and obliquely reminiscent of past rural forms".
The instrumentation on their songs is usually a simple arrangement, with Welch and Rawlings accompanying their own vocals with acoustic guitars, banjos, or a mandolin. Welch plays rhythm guitar with a 1956 Gibson J-50 (or banjo), while Rawlings plays lead on a 1935 Epiphone Olympic Guitar.The New Yorker's Wilkinson described Rawlings as a "strikingly inventive guitarist" who plays solos that are "daring melodic leaps". A review in No Depression by Andy Moore observed that Rawlings "squeezes, strokes, chokes and does just about everything but blow into" his guitar.
Many songs performed by Welch and Rawlings contain dark themes about social outcasts struggling against such elements as poverty, drug addiction, death, a disconnection from their family, and an unresponsive God. Despite Welch being the lead singer, several of these characters are male. Welch has commented, "To be commercial, everybody wants happy love songs. People would flat-out ask me, 'Don't you have any happy love songs?' Well, as a matter of fact, I don't. I've got songs about orphans and morphine addicts." To reflect these themes, Welch and Rawlings often employ a slow pace to their songs. Their tempo is compared to a "slow heartbeat", and Cowperthwait of Rolling Stone observed that their songs "can lull you into near-hypnosis and then make your jaw drop with one final revelation".
Down Along the Dixie Line
Gillian Welch Lyrics
Jump to: Overall Meaning ↴ Line by Line Meaning ↴
Down along the Dixie Line
Banjos are strumming
Horseflies are humming
Ripe melons on the vine
The gold and the grey weeds
Sing look away
Way down along the Dixie Line
I spent my childhood walking the wildwood
Down along the Dixie Line
Freight trains are squalling
Eyeballs are bawling
Four engines at a time
I was so happy with Momma and Pappy
Down along the Dixie Line
Can't you hear those drivers way?
Can't you see those bright rails shine?
Wanna catch that fireball man
Leave that North Land far behind
A river of whiskey flows down in Dixie
Down along the Dixie Line
They pulled up the tracks now
I can't go back now
Can't hardly keep from cryin'
Oh do they miss me way down in Dixie
Down along the Dixie Line
Can't you hear those drivers way?
Can't you see those bright rails shine?
Wanna catch that fireball man
Leave that North Land far behind
Down along the Dixie Line
The opening lines of Gillian Welch's song "Down Along the Dixie Line" express nostalgia for the singer's Southern roots. She describes the pastoral landscape of Dixie, with banjos being played, horseflies buzzing, and ripe melons growing on the vine. She name-checks the Confederacy, with "gold and grey weeds" singing "look away," referencing the Confederate song "Dixie," which includes the famous line "look away, look away, look away Dixieland." The singer then reflects on her childhood in the South, walking through the wildwood and listening to the mournful sound of freight trains passing by.
The chorus of the song expresses a desire to return to the South and escape the cold North. The singer wants to leave the "bright rails" behind and ride the "fireball," a term used in the 1930s to describe a fast-moving train. The final verse brings a note of sadness, as the singer laments the fact that the tracks have been pulled up and she can never return to the Dixie she remembers. She imagines that people in the South miss her as much as she misses them.
Line by Line Meaning
Way down in Dixie, oh do they miss me
The singer is wondering if people in Dixie miss them.
Down along the Dixie Line
The singer is referring to a particular area in Dixie.
Banjos are strumming
The sound of banjos playing can be heard.
Horseflies are humming
The buzzing sound of horseflies can be heard.
Ripe melons on the vine
Melons are growing and are ready to be picked.
The gold and the grey weeds
The plants and vegetation are both colorful and dull.
Sing look away
The plants and nature sing as if they want to be left alone.
I spent my childhood walking the wildwood
The artist grew up in the forest and rural areas.
Freight trains are squalling
The sound of freight trains can be heard.
Eyeballs are bawling
The artist is crying.
Four engines at a time
Multiple trains are passing by at once.
I was so happy with Momma and Pappy
The artist was happy spending time with their family.
Can't you hear those drivers way?
The singer is asking if others can hear the sound of train conductors.
Can't you see those bright rails shine?
The singer is describing the shiny railroad tracks.
Wanna catch that fireball man
The singer wants to catch a train and ride it quickly.
Leave that North Land far behind
The artist wants to leave their current location and travel south.
A river of whiskey flows down in Dixie
There is a lot of whiskey being produced and consumed in Dixie.
They pulled up the tracks now
The railroad tracks have been removed.
I can't go back now
The singer cannot return to the area they once knew.
Can't hardly keep from cryin'
The artist is finding it difficult to hold back tears.
Oh do they miss me way down in Dixie
The artist is wondering if people in Dixie are thinking about them.
Down along the Dixie Line
The artist is referring again to the particular area in Dixie.
Lyrics © BMG RIGHTS MANAGEMENT US, LLC
Written by: DAVID TODD RAWLINGS, GILLIAN HOWARD WELCH
Lyrics Licensed & Provided by LyricFind