Red Dirt Girl

The title song of Red Dirt Girl is about the narrator and her best friend Lillian, two red dirt girls in a small Alabama town, and Lillian's life closing in until she dies young, never having got further than Meridian, Mississippi. Harris said she wrote it thinking about childhood memories of Alabama, but that her own childhood had been idyllic, so she had to make up a sad story to go with all the sad songs; asked if Lillian was real, she said no. She has also said she is inspired by the sound of words, and that place names are melodic. An early version sung on NPR's Fresh Air in August 2000 has slightly different names, and the film Boys Don't Cry was on her mind as she wrote.

She first played it at the Ryman in May 2000, months before the album came out, and it is now the song she has performed most, with setlist.fm logging around 250 shows, up to Hardly Strictly Bluegrass in San Francisco in October 2026. The hypersongs web holds the studio recording and the 2006 live version with Mark Knopfler's band.