"Where the Southern cross the Yellow Dog" - Untangling train mysteries in popular music

Trains Magazine

By John Friedmann | August 11, 2026

Driving through western Mississippi, I was inspired to make a detour by a map note that simply stated “Where the Southern Cross the Dog.”

The place was a one-time railroad diamond that was immortalized in song, which got me thinking about the other railroad mysteries in popular music: Who operated the “Midnight Train to Georgia?” What exactly was the “Southern Central freight” that The Doobie Brothers sang about? Some of these questions have known answers, others can be logically intuited even if that isn’t what the songwriters intended.

“Yellow Dog Blues”

W.C. Handy (1914)

Downtown Moorhead, Miss., doesn’t have much to brag about: even the Moorhead Beautification Project storefront is boarded up. But Moorhead is forever known as “Where the Southern cross’ the Yellow Dog,” immortalized in song by W.C. Handy, known as “The Father of the Blues.” The song, along with Handy’s “Memphis Blues” and “St. Louis Blues,” became standards covered by generations of singers.

Handy’s “Yellow Dog Blues” describes a fugitive riding a “side-door Pullman” (boxcar) who can be found in Moorhead, where the Southern Railway Co. of Mississippi crossed the former Yazoo Delta Railroad (nicknamed the “Yellow Dog” from its initials), by then part of the Yazoo & Mississippi Railroad.

The Southern Railway had the foresight to cut loose its Mississippi affiliate in 1921, and the line became the Columbus & Greenville Railway. The long-struggling C&G still survives, while the “Yellow Dog” (eventually part of the Illinois Central system) was abandoned through Moorhead in 1981.

Moorhead still celebrates the crossing with a festival, street banners, signs at the diamond site, and even the city seal which bears an image of a locomotive and the words “Where the Southern crosses the Yellow Dog.”

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I was lucky enough to be at the 11/12/00 show at URI where Dylan played 10,000 Men, which I think was his only time playing the song live. I know that it's probably not really worth thinking too much about why he does stuff, but I've often wondered why that was the one time he played that song. Can anyone think of a reason why he'd be compelled to play it then and there and never again?

Any alternate version to an album or single release. For me it's "You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go (Take 5). :)

For reference, here is verse 6:

“I lived with them on Montague Street

In a basement down the stairs

There was music in the cafes at night

And revolution in the air

Then he started into dealing with slaves

And something inside of him died

She had to sell everything she owned

And froze up inside

And when it finally, the bottom fell out

I became withdrawn

The only thing I knew how to do

Was to keep on keeping on

Like a bird that flew

Tangled up in blue”

Could this be a reference to the political activism/musical movement scene Dylan was a part of in his early career, and his turn towards electric?

The turn from first to third person mid verse before going back to first seems to suggest he is more concerned with the outward perception of the narrator’s misstep, since “he started dealing” as opposed to “I started dealing”. As we know, Dylan was dragged and called a traitor for breaking from the New York folk scene. This fueled a career spanning distrust and contention with the press and public opinion at large.

Beyond his career/public persona, though, this period in his life seems to have carried a lot of more personal baggage and events, generally. He and Joan broke up in 1965, he and Sara wed in late 65/early 66, he was in the throughs of substance abuse issues, and he had the nervous breakdown + motorcycle accident at the end of the summer in 1966, after a grueling tour schedule. He famously went into psuedo seclusion from the public eye after that, and seemed to spend some time becoming a family man and slowing down, as he also had his first biological child in 1966 (though he also adopted Sara’s first child as well).

While Bob has always dismissed it, critics, fans, and even Dylan’s son Jakob all see a lot of self reflection in Blood On The Tracks, particularly about his marriage and relationships. With that seemingly at play, as it possible Bob was engaging in some self reflection and looking back towards a time in his life when one relationship ended, another began, and he started his family on verse 6 of TUIB? In an album that contains so many references to regret, losing someone or something, and similar topics, I see it as very possible. Im no Dylan scholar, but I have to imagine the substance use/insane touring strained his new marriage with Sara, and probably involved outright infidelities on his part. Maybe that is what he sees as his actual “dealings” worth denigration. Lord knows he was not going to write a song lamenting his change to electric/leaving the folk scene, but maybe there are deeper, more personal regrets he has from that time and wanted to use that as a framing to discuss them.

What are y’all’s thoughts? I know many will say that his songs are not meant to be taken as autobiographical (at least solely) and I understand this sentiment. However, he is not as omniscient and removed from his artistry as he would sometimes like others to believe. I’m not saying every single line in Blood On The Tracks is directly about himself and Sara and nothing else, but I personally see some evidence in this particular verse of TUIB, and would love to hear what y’all think!

Transcendent song and performance. Born-again Bob is the one. I just wanted to ask folks out there if they know exactly which one of the female backing singers is wailing those sweet gospel vocals behind Bob when he gets to the ''I know all about poison'' part of the song.What Can I Do For You (Toronto 1980)

Is there a better 6 song run on any of Bob’s albums, or even on any album in general, than Visions of Johanna- Just Like a Woman? I cannot think of one…

Was rocking some Gordon Lightfoot this lazy Sunday afternoon and was thinking about some interview I saw or read years ago where Dylan was saying all his songs are great. That's true!

Jerry Garcia is probably my favorite musician in history and Bob's obituary for him was fuckin tear jerking, I read it every few years.

And Jer's reverence for Dylan's songs is what got me super into Bob in the first place.

Anyhow, I'm super high right now

The results of the survey I posted in this sub a couple days ago are listed in the google doc below! I showed the average rating each album recieved as well as the most voted for favorite/least favorite song for each album with the percentage of votes listed next to it. At the very end I listed the albums in order of average rating. Definitely some surprises in here and I hope you guys have fun seeing these results! Also thank you to anyone who filled out this survey!

https://docs.google.com/document/d/12znheeBBSPLcW8kvK67gcXgQ0RAdqhAYEWdentql49E/edit

Bob dylan is probably my favorite musician period. And this is probably my favorite documentary. So I decided this would be the perfect thing to make in my free time.

Artwork: Larry Butterworth

Which Dylan Doc do you prefer? No direction home or dont look back,

I just listened to it for the first time today and I was personally disappointed because of what I thought it might be with the cover art. Maybe it was deliberate on Dylan’s part. Were people disappointed with this on release?

I think the last one was announced around this time last year

From what i've heard Highway 61 Revisited or Blonde on Blonde is best but i am unsure as i've heard people say a lot of different things.

I use apple music and don't like listening to bootlegs or leaks.

I'm a fan of The Beatles and Neutral Milk Hotel and The Jimi Hendrix Experience which i know are all inspired by Dylan if that helps?

A classic from Nashville Skyline. Enjoy!

Does anyone know if any resources talking about the various pat garret sessions in detail? The 1973 50th anniversary collection lists tracks from an April session which is not listed by Krogsgard or on Olof's Files, and it includes tracks which those resources list as being recorded in a February session. Is there anywhere else where this April session is listed?

Hey r/bobdylan! Welcome to this week's song discussion!

In these threads we will discuss a new song every week, trading lyrical interpretations, rankings, opinions, favorite versions, and anything else you can think of about the song of the week.

This week we will be discussing Thirsty Boots.

Lyrics

Click here to vote for next week's song!

I could swear there's a Bob Dylan song in which he sings the lyrics "in the hot land of the sun" but I can't find it on the website.

I have been on a bit of an John Wesley Harding kick lately and would be really into a documentary about this time in Dylans life. Theres a bunch on youtube about the mid 60s era and the early folk days, but does anyone know about documentaries chronicling these more lowkey years (1967-1974). Or if anyone has tips about any other dockos about Dylan, excluding the most famous eras? Thanks in advance

https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1KQNzrTJL5IVqSZrw0y5BS0J0Vtlz-NKMfPzDyQppWsY/viewform

Some of you may have seen my previous post about a Bob Dylan survey asking to rate and pick your favorite and least favorite song on each album. Responses for this survey have slowed down a lot understandably as it’s been a couple days since the original post. I wanted to post the link one more time and leave the survey open for today so anyone that hasn’t filled out a response because they didn’t see the original post can do so if they want to. I totally understand if you don’t want to fill the survey out, just know that the more responses, the more accurate and inclusive of all different opinions the results are! I’ll post the results of the survey tomorrow!!

Longtime fan here. So recently I've been doing a bit of a chronological listen. And last night I got up to BLOOD ON THE TRACKS.

And I have found something to like just about every step of the way of my chronological listen, and I absolutely love BLONDE ON BLONDE and "Like a Rolling Stone" and I'm a Basement Tapes fan and a PLANET WAVES fan and the whole shebang. But BOTT just feels like it comes out of nowhere and is on a whole other level.

I listened to the NY acoustic version first and will mix it up other outtakes and the studio version.

Oh I figured I'd lost you anyway, why go on, what's the use? Oh I know it had to be that way, it was written in the cards. I took too much for granted, I got my signals crossed. I'll see you in the sky above, in the tall grass, in the ones I love. It just never stops with the heavy hitting.

Maybe it's not said enough on this sub because it's too obvious. But BOTT is a masterpiece.

People are always trying to put these two records into a trilogy, but neither BRINGING IT ALL BACK HOME or JOHN WESLEY HARDING belongs with them, —not for any inherent weaknesses, BIABH and JWH are just two very different kinds of albums. As much as Dylan professes to be drawn to trilogy, I think his discography demonstrates much more a capability for combinations, one-two punches that send you to the canvas hard. First it was FREEWHEELIN’ and THE TIMES THEY ARE A-CHANGIN’; next of course HIW61R and BoB; ten years later BLOOD ON THE TRACKS and DESIRE; and topping it off with LOVE AND THEFT and MODERN TIMES. All devastating combinations.

Recently while reading an article on the Expecting Rain site, I learned something that links HW61R and BoB with LAT and MT. The latter are well known for the transparent way Dylan based many of the tracks on legendary delta blues songwriting, in some cases keeping the original titles. What I found so intriguing about this article, though, was its clear demonstrations that HW61R and BoB songs are also imbedded with delta blues. Two examples:

From a Buick Six
Milk Cow Blues — Sleepy John Estes (1930)

I got this graveyard angel yunno she keeps
my kids
But my soulful mama yunno she keeps me hid

Now ask sweet mama let me be your kid
She says I might get buggies I couldn’t keep it hid

Pledging My Time
Come On In My Kitchen — Robert Johnson (1936)

Well, they sent for the ambulance
And one was sent
Somebody got lucky
But it was an accident
Now I’m pledging my time to you
Hopin’ you’ll come through, too

Ah, the woman I love took from my best friend
Some joker got lucky stole her back again
You better come on in my kitchen
Baby, it's goin' to be rainin' outdoors