The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
The title of this article refers to a famous song by “the Band.” Why mention it here on JonahWorld? Because I recently watched a video of “The Last Waltz,” a documentary film by Martin Scorsese, which documents the last performance of this group. The song in question was sung with great force by Levon Helm, the drummer, and made an impression on me.
By the way, all you would ever want to know
about this song is on Peter
Viney’s “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down (revisited)” website.
In fall, 1972, I was taking a
required U.S. History class in high school; it was taught by a teacher named
“Pete” Petersen, who had a great interest in the Civil War. He made a habit of
traveling to Civil War battlefields and taking slide photos, which he showed to
us in class. His interest in the subject was infectious, and the next semester
I enrolled in his Civil War class - which started me off on a long cycle of
reading Civil War-related books, enlisting in the Marine Corps, and, ten years
later, becoming a reenactor. The main reason I live in the East, in fact, is
due to the early influence that Pete’s interest in the Civil War exerted on me.
My favorite type of music is
classical, but I have listened to a lot of rock and pop over the years. I am
embarrassed to relate that, when I was taking Pete’s class, I used to think
that Don McLean’s song “American Pie” had something to do with the Civil War.
(Yes, yes, I know, the line “…drove my Chevy to the levy, but the levy was dry”
strongly suggests a time other than the mid 19th century.) I guess I
was so heavily involved in the subject that I viewed everything else with it in
mind.
Anyway, The Night They
Drove Old Dixie Down is a well-known song by the Band that is certainly about
the Civil War - in first person, no less. I have read that “…it’s not about
the Confederacy, it’s from the Confederacy.” Well, maybe. To me it’s
more a song about abject defeat as a theme with Confederate trappings than it
is like any of the music from the Civil War. - Jonah Begone
The Night They Drove Old
Dixie Down
by J.R.Robertson. Album:
The Band
© 1970 Canaan Music, Inc.
Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,'Til Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again.In the winter of '65, We were hungry, just barely alive.By May the tenth, Richmond had fell, it's a time I remember, oh so well, (Chorus) The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the bells were ringing,The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, and the people were singin'. They went La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, La, Back with my wife in Tennessee, When one day she called to me,"Virgil, quick, come see, there goes Robert E. Lee!"Now I don't mind choppin' wood, and I don't care if the money's no good.Ya take what ya need and ya leave the rest,But they should never have taken the very best. (Chorus) Like my father before me, I will work the land,Like my brother above me, who took a rebel stand.He was just eighteen, proud and brave, But a Yankee laid him in his grave,I swear by the mud below my feet, You can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat. (Chorus and fade)