"Mississippi" is a medium-tempo country-rock song by the American singer-songwriter Bob Dylan that appears as the second track on his 2001 album Love and Theft.
Described as having beauty and gravitas, the song features a pop chord progression and has a riff and lyrical theme similar to "Stuck Inside of Mobile with the Memphis Blues Again".
As Kemper explained in an interview with Uncut magazine: "We thought we were done with Love And Theft, and then a friend of Bob’s passed him a note, and he said, 'Oh, yeah, I forgot about this: "Mississippi"'.
Speaking to Rolling Stone about why he re-recorded it for Love and Theft, Dylan said, "The song was pretty much laid out intact melodically, lyrically and structurally, but Lanois didn’t see it.
Polyrhythm has its place, but it doesn’t work for knifelike lyrics trying to convey majesty and heroism...On the performance you’re hearing, the bass is playing a triplet beat, and that adds up to all the multirhythm you need, even in a slow-tempo song.
With all of my records, there’s an abundance of material left off – stuff that, for a variety of reasons, doesn’t make the final cut...Except on this album, for which we re-cut the song ‘Mississippi'.
A 2015 USA Today article ranking "all of Bob Dylan's songs" placed "Mississippi" first (just ahead of "Visions of Johanna" and "Like a Rolling Stone").
In an article accompanying the list, critic Peter Tabakis wrote that the song has been "pored over, picked apart, researched into and argued about since its official release on 'Love and Theft'.
Others suggest a more political reading, one that stretches back to the moral blight of American slavery and the fundamental contradictions of our Founding Documents".
Tabakis also noted that "dilettantes and academics alike agree on one indisputable fact: 'Mississippi' ranks high as one of Dylan’s most complex, melodic and stunning compositions in a career brimming with them".
They describe the Love and Theft arrangement as "more country rock" than the versions Dylan recorded for Time Out of Mind.
Courtney Marie Andrews selected "Mississippi", noting how the song's "narrator is both wise and naive, but accepting of his older condition.
17: Fragments – Time Out of Mind Sessions (1996–1997), released on January 27, 2023, contains two additional previously unreleased studio outtakes of the song and a live version from 2001.
[24] The live debut occurred at the Jackson County Fairgrounds in Central Point, Oregon on October 9, 2001 and the last performance (to date) took place at the Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on November 19, 2012.
Crow's version reworked the song's melody, phrasing, and arrangement, and has been described contrastingly as "remarkable"[30] and as "forgettable, head-bopping pop".
[2] 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.