Driving Old Dixie Down

Like a lot of people my age, I like what is now called "Classic Rock".  Simply put, "Classic Rock" are songs that were played on the radio when we were kids.

Back then, you were either a music guy or a lyrics guy. If you were a lyrics guy, you sat around and tried to figure out what the songs meant.  You cannot imagine the hours I've spent trying to figure out Don McLean's "American Pie".  I no longer wonder what McLean meant because he once said, "What does American Pie mean?  It means I work only when I want to"

The most misinterpreted song of all time is Bob Dylan's "Hey! Mr. Tambourine Man".  I always read and heard that it was about a drug pusher.  News flash:  it was about a musician Dylan worked with that played the tambourine during a recording session.  That's not to say old Bob wasn't on drugs when he wrote the song.  There was a good four to five years he was on drugs 24/7.  He's probably on drugs 24/7 now, but it is  maintenance medicine, not the recreational kind.

We have a new entry in the misinterpreted song contest and that is "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" by The Band.

I'm sure you haven't thought about that song in years. But apparently some people have. These people have decided it needs to be changed (a singer has rewritten the third verse to bring a song about 1865 written in 1969 more up to date) or "canceled".  Being "canceled" simply means withdrawing support from something because it is offensive and/or public shaming.

Here are the lyrics of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".  Read them if you dare!

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

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, "Na, la, la, la, na, na
La la, na, na, la, la, la, la, la"

Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me
"Virgil, quick, come see
There goes the Robert E. Lee"
Now I don't mind choppin' wood
And I don't care if the money's no good
You take what you need and you leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singing
They went, "Na, la, la, la, na, na
La la, na, na, la, la, la, la, la"

Like my father before me
I will work the land
And 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

The night they drove old Dixie down
And the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the people were singing
They went, "Na, la, la, la, na, na
La la, na, na, la, la, la, la, la"

The night they drove old Dixie down
And all the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down
And the people were singing
They went, "Na, la, la, la, na, na
La la, na, na, la, la, la, la, la"

 

Here's what one writer said:  ".... that when you love a song, you tend to love all of it. When you take pleasure in “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” you’re identifying with the melancholy and the loss of that Southern white guy, and feeling his sadness because he can’t own people any more."

It seems the ringing bells and singing people because Dixie was driven down does not make an impression on this writer.  Plus, and this is big for me at  least, point where Virgil Caine expresses sadness for not being able to own people.

There's more.  "For The Band, the Confederacy was steeped in heritage, not hate. There’s no mention of Black people, no indication that Caine’s “rebel stand” was to fight for white people’s right to enslave, torture, rape, and murder Black people at will. Virgil Caine might as well be a non-Jewish German lamenting the fall of the Reich. At best, the song is clueless. At worst, it’s a conscious, bad faith celebration of white supremacy."

 Fair enough.  I agree there's no mention of the evils of slavery. That may make it "clueless".  But, to be fair, this is a song, not a term paper. Robbie Robertson (the writer of the song) was writing about one person, a poor farmer from Tennessee that was conscripted into The Confederate Army. Calling the song "a conscious bad faith celebration of white supremacy" is just stupid on steroids. 

Back when I was in college, there was something called "Literary Criticism" that was used to interpret poems and stories from history.  Here is why I don't think "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is a song we need to flush down the memory toilet of time.

The Writer: The songwriter is Robbie Robertson, a Canadian whose mother was a Cayuga/Mohawk Indian and father was Jewish.   

His Musical History:  He has no other songs that express any kind of admiration for the Confederacy.

The Song History: The song was on The Band's second album. It became a hit on the radio by Joan Baez,  FYI, Joan Baez performed at The March On Washington in 1963 and is not what you would call a "conservative" person.  The thought she would record a song that glamorizes racism is laughable.

The  Time The Song Was Written:  The song was written in the late 1960's and there was a little thing called The Vietnam War going on.  While there was a draft, the rich kids figured out ways to serve in the National Guard (see; Bush, George W) or keep their student deferments by going to college.  The kids from the middle or lower classes were often sent over to Vietnam.  Virgil Caine would have been in that group and you can see "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" as a companion piece to Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Fortunate Son".

The Song Itself:  There is one glaring historical inaccuracy in the song.  There's no record of Robert E Lee ever going to Tennessee in The Civil War.  However.  Virgil isn't impressed with Lee. He says "they should never taken the very best":  meaning his brother for such a worthless cause.

Again, I go back to the chorus. The bells are ringing and the people are singing because Old Dixie was driven down.  Robertson is saying that is a good thing. And it was.

I appreciate people can have opinions. But even in the liberal arts there are things known as "facts", maybe you have heard of them. The late Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan once said "Everyone is entitled to his own opinion but not to his own facts".  The people pushing the idea that there is something nefarious about this song are pushing their own set of facts.