Songfacts®:

• Frontman Caleb Followill discussed with the NME August 21, 2010 this gently-paced acoustic country tribute to the band's southern roots: "That song came from Matt messing around on a little lap steel. He played the melody to me and the first lyrics that came to mind were 'Come on down and dance, if you get the chance…' I think because we recorded the album in New York, we somehow rediscovered a bit of our country side, whereas if we'd been in Nashville, where you're surrounded by country music, that would've never happened But we were like, let's get a bit of fiddle on there, let's have the pizza delivery guy in the studio singing the chorus with us. We wanted it to have that kind of rootsy feel."
• The southern-rock siblings (and their cousin) told the story of this song to The Music Fix:
  
  Caleb: I knew with "Back Down South," I was so excited to record that song. I didn't write one lyric to that song; I free-flowed every bit of that. But, Matthew, one day, we were in the rehearsal space and he had a lap steel.
  
  Matthew: I brought one and I didn't know how to tune it or anything, but it was in the tuning and I played around for a while. Then the guy kinda showed me how to do certain things – So one of the first things I've played on it.
  
  Caleb: Kinda went like, "Berr, bah-bah, berr, buh-buh buhm." And immediately I said, "come out and dance, if you get the chance..."
  
  Matthew: And I was so excited and I knew it was so far away, but I couldn't wait to show the guys that line! I was so happy when I showed it to them, everybody immediately tried to start writing parts for it. And that's the best feeling ever.
  
  Nathan: It was just one of those, like Caleb said, we had a round of everyone singing it. then kinda got distracted and played darts or whatever – had a drink.
  
  Matthew: It was one of the best times we've ever had in the studio! For some reason, we started drinking whiskey so early, at like right when we got there. Like, "hey! Gonna take a shot?" And everybody's like, "yeah!" So, at the end of the night, we were like, let's just sing some backup vocals in the end – just sing what Caleb's singing. And twenty people – all the crew, everybody that worked there – we're all in the room with a couple of mics.
  
  Jared: I was actually out sick for a couple of days. I was so depressed, sitting at home. I couldn't do anything. But, they'd send me e-mails of the songs! And I'd be like, "ugh! I wanna be there so bad!" And then they sent me that and it was just like, "why don't you stab me in the back!" I leave for 5 seconds and you guys have a pizza party on Friday!
  
  Nathan: You know, I was glad for a song like "Back Down South" to make this record because we could have so easily gone in there and tried to give them six "Sex on Fire"'s and six "Somebody"'s. It was good to see "Back Down South" on there because that was us going back to not only our roots as where we're from, but also the type of band we've been from day one!