| "Mississippi" | ||||||||||
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| Song by Bob Dylan from the album "Love and Theft" | ||||||||||
| Released | September 11, 2001 | |||||||||
| Recorded | May 2001 | |||||||||
| Genre | Folk rock | |||||||||
| Length | 5:21 | |||||||||
| Label | Columbia | |||||||||
| Writer | Bob Dylan | |||||||||
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"Mississippi" is the second song on Bob Dylan's 2001 album "Love and Theft". The song was originally recorded during the Time Out of Mind (1997) sessions, but was ultimately left off the album; Dylan rerecorded the song for "Love and Theft" in May 2001. Three outtakes (two versions on two general discs and one on the bonus disc) of this song from Time Out Of Mind sessions were included in Dylan's "official" bootleg album Bootleg Series Vol. 8: Rare and Unreleased. Described as having beauty and gravitas, the song features a pop chord progression and with a riff and lyrical theme similar to "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again".[1]
Dylan offered the song to Sheryl Crow,[2] who recorded it for her The Globe Sessions, released in 1998, before Dylan revisited it for Love and Theft. Crow's version reworked the song's melody, phrasing, and arrangement, and has been described contrastingly as "remarkable"[3] and as "forgettable, head-bopping pop".[1]
Subsequently, the Dixie Chicks would make it a mainstay of their Top of the World, Vote for Change, and Accidents & Accusations Tours, in an approach that substantially followed Crow's. They began including the song after their political controversy and their backing arrangement includes on keyboard a guitar riff from The Who's "Won't Get Fooled Again".[4]
In 2009, Rolling Stone named "Mississippi" the 17th best song of the decade, calling it "A drifter's love song that seems to sum up Dylan's entire career, and a rambling classic that ranks up there with 'Tangled Up in Blue'."[5]
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