The Meaning Of "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"

A friend, fellow blogger, moderate Baptist, dog lover, and companion in the study of human behavior sent me an email this afternoon:

Dear Mr. Sepulchre,
I heard the song, "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"
I have never understood that song. I understand it has to do with the South losing the War of Northern Aggression. However....
The war did not end overnight.
And what does it mean "drove old Dixie down"
Can you explain this to me, you being a Reb?

Hugs, Dr. Liz

Dr. Liz is a Michigan native. Check out her blog, Zbeth Journal, for her daily routine, her minimalist book reviews, and the blogs of her two dogs, Blitzen and Lady Chica. Dr. Liz is probably one of the first women in the U.S. to get a doctorate in Sociology, and we sometimes meet at Fort Woof dog park to discuss the sociological theories of Max Weber (long story).

Dr. Liz, as a Yankee, can't be expected to understand the subtleties of a song like "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". But deconstructing lyrics from The Band's 1969 hippie anthem is one of the many services provided by The Whited Sepulchre Outreach Ministry. Let's begin.

This is one of the great songs of the Lost Cause, a ballad whose words and tune could only have been written by a true Son Of The South, someone from the Cradle Of The Confederacy, someone like Robbie Robertson from.....(ahem) Canada.
Yep. The song was written by a Canadian. The Band's drummer, Levon Helm of Helena, Arkansas, got a songwriting credit for helping Robertson out with some of the history.

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 Danville - Richmond supply train was the lifeblood of the Confederate capital until the Union cavalry, led by General Stoneman, ripped up the tracks. This cut off Richmond, so the Confederate capital had to be moved to Danville, probably because all our trains happened to be on that end of the damaged tracks at the time. We weren't very well organized.

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-la-la

The song is about defeat. Being trampled into the dirt. At the time Robertson wrote this song the U.S. had not yet been kicked out of Viet Nam, and the South was the only American region to ever undergo a full-blown enemy occupation.
The north is full of people who say "soda" or "pop" instead of "Coke". Their states and cities sometimes need bailouts. Some of them root for New York teams in The World Series. Yankees say "you guys" instead of "y'all".
Dixie wasn't driven down in one night - that's poetic lisence. But if Yankees capture your capital, it's all over.

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

This is a troublesome verse. Virgil Caine is back with his wife in Tennessee, and his wife calls him to see Confederate General Robert E. Lee passing by. But Lee was never in Tennessee after the war. You can read various theories about what it all means by going to this discussion page on The Band's website.
The line about "I don't care if the money's no good" is an allusion to Confederate money after the government printed too much of it, a subject I've beaten to death elsewhere.

I've always wondered about the next line, "they never should have taken the very best".... Does "the very best" refer to Caine's brother's death in the next verse?
Did the Damn Yankees take everything the Caine's owned during the Reconstruction era?
Did Dr Liz's Michigan ancestors take Caine's wife at some point?

(My parents once lived near the empty field where Civil War Reenactors annually fight The Battle Of Clinton. Every year when my mother saw the Yankee army march into view, she wanted to run back home and bury her silverware in the back yard.)
I have no idea what that verse is supposed to mean.
Those Canadians are poetic, but vague.

The night they drove old Dixie down and the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down and all the people were singin', they went
Na-na-na 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, 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

Like my father before me, like my brother before me....I hear it all the time. My father was a republican, my brother is a republican, so I'm a republican. My father was from the south, my brother fought for the south, so I'm going to fight for the south. Every tribal war in history (and they've all been tribal) was fought by people with the same general mindset.
And can we all agree that "raise a Caine" is a bad pun?

The night they drove old Dixie oown and the bells were ringing
The night they drove old Dixie down and all the people were singin', they went
Na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na na-na-na, 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 the people were singin', they went
Na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na na-na-na, na-na-na-na

That's my interpretation of Robbie Robertson's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down". The lyrics, combined with the bass line that descends over and over, have a vibe of hopeless defeat. Reading it as history is kind of like reading the book of Genesis for science. Great song, don't you think?

I hope this helps, Dr Liz.

Here's The Band doing the song in Martin Scorsese's "The Last Waltz". Beautiful stuff.



I had no idea this was out there. The Black Crowes !



And now for something completely different ! ! Here's Joan Baez doing the song with some Muppets.