Song of the Day # 419 The Band

'When I first went down South, I remember that a quite common expression would be, "Well don't worry, the South's gonna rise again." At one point when I heard it I thought it was kind of a funny statement and then I heard it another time and I was really touched by it. I thought, "God, because I keep hearing this, there's pain here, there is a sadness here." In Americana land, it's a kind of a beautiful sadness.'

Robbie Robertson

Pop Music was never supposed to be able to do this. Of course The Band were never about Pop Music. Far from it. Their first two albums, released towards the end of the Sixties brought about a huge sea change in terms of what Rock Music could do and talk about.

'Nothing I have read … has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does. The only thing I can relate it to at all is The Red Badge of Courage. It's a remarkable song, the rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Richard and Rick in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn't some traditional material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of 1865 to today. It has that ring of truth and the whole aura of authenticity.'

Ralph J. Gleeson, Rolling Stone review, October 1969

The song was written by Robbie Robertson but sung by drummer Levon Helm and his voice inhabits it. The clip above is taken from Martin Scorsese's film of The Band's last concert The Last Waltz in 1978.

'Virgil Caine is my name and I drove 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 10th, Richmond had fell.

It's a time I remember, oh so well.

                                                    The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the bells were ringing,

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the people were singing

They went, "Na,na,na.na,

Na na na na na na na na na.''

 

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 I'm choppin' wood, and I don't care if the money's no good.

You take what you need and leave the rest,

But they should never have taken the very best.

 

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the bells were ringing,

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the people were singing.

They went, "Na,na,na na

'Na,na,na.na na na na na na..'

 

Like my father before me, I will work the land,

And like my brother before me, I took a rebel stand.

He was just eighteen, proud and brave,

but a Yankee laid him in his grave.

I swear by the blood below my feet

You can't raise a Caine back up when he's in defeat

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the bells were ringing,

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the people were singing

They went, "Na, na, na na ... "

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the bells were ringing.

The night they drove old Dixie down

And all the people were singing.

They went, "Na, na, na na ..."