General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsNight They Drove Old Dixie Down
I once wondered why Joan Baez, one of the great political singers of the left, recorded this -- but I finally concluded Joan's politics have always been rooted in a genuine sympathy for other people, whether they agreed with her or not
HassleCat
(6,409 posts)I prefer to think most southerners were suckered into going along with the confederate propaganda, much the same as most of our legislators were suckered into going along with the Iraq invasion.
struggle4progress
(119,447 posts)libdem4life
(13,877 posts)high school and a Republican like my family. But to see and hear Bob Dylan at that age...kind of my age...what a treat in my older age. Thanks S4P.
jwirr
(39,215 posts)the game.
lumberjack_jeff
(33,224 posts)WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)spanone
(137,281 posts)the story was probably lifted from levon since they played in 'The Band'
robbie wrote most of the band's original material
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)a big part of the historical research that helped him pen the song. Regardless, it's powerful... Robertson's lyrics and Helm's delivery.
spanone
(137,281 posts)robbie had none of that.
i read levon's book and he was pretty bitter about it....
it is a powerful song and levon was one of our greatest voices
Major Nikon
(36,877 posts)But I don't believe he was involved in the actual writing of the song.
msongs
(69,471 posts)Elwood P Dowd
(11,443 posts)Better than average rig back in the day.
Gloria
(17,663 posts)Eom
WorseBeforeBetter
(11,441 posts)It really is a beautiful, passionate song, and I say that as a native Pennsylvanian. Such raw emotion...
Gloria
(17,663 posts)I have my original copy, scratches and all, an put it on once in awhile on one of those "consoles" they sell now...awful, I know, but at my age, my Garrad 40B turntable is long gone!! As is my Panasonic Technics and the big speakers.....
Even this live version seems to lose a lot of that album's soulfulness...
kentuck
(112,301 posts)and a lot of old albums, some of them scratched pretty good. This is one of my favorites by the Band:
Journeyman
(15,121 posts)as much as a Confederate lament. I don't have time to discuss it as I would like, but here's an interesting, conglomerate discussion, focused more on The Band's original version, but detailing Baez's take on the tune as well.
http://theband.hiof.no/articles/dixie_viney.html
And here's a little something to help you truly question the meaning and intent of this song:
kentuck
(112,301 posts)Of a great song.
I had not heard that one before.
Journeyman
(15,121 posts)I thought no one could improve on Springsteen, especially an iconic piece like "Streets of Philadelphia," and then One Step Up/Two Steps Back brought us this:
So much raw emotion and empathetic pain in four short minutes. I tear up every time I hear it, remembering vividly the pain of loss even though I've never known an Andy Beckett.
struggle4progress
(119,447 posts)Excellent!
Cassidy1
(300 posts)More from Marcuss Mystery Train:
It is hard for me to comprehend how any Northerner, raised on a very different war than Virgil Kanes, could listen to this song without finding himself changed. You cant get out from under the singers truthnot the whole truth, but his truthand the little autobiography closes the gap between us. The performance leaves behind a feeling that for all our oppositions, every American still shares this old event; because to this day none of us has escaped its impact, what we share is an ability to respond to a story like this one.
I always think about the meaning of books, songs, etc. The three things I ask are 1) What does it say?; 2) What does it mean?; and 3) What does it mean to me? This could be one of those songs. I see the same in the song I Don't Like Mondays. Obviously a very different song, but one that sums up a situation with the hopeless lament that sometimes things are going to happen, and that there are no reasons or reasons that are going to be beyond your control no matter what you do.
Robertson was from Canada, and had this real fascination with the American South. He actually went to the library to do research for the song.
arely staircase
(12,482 posts)cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)several times while traveling in the South. He thought it was funny at first, but on reflection, picked up on the sense of pain and loss in the expression.
cwydro
(51,308 posts)Period.
daleo
(21,317 posts)All the people were singing.
Those lines make it sound more like a celebration, than a lament over a loss.
You can't raise a Caine when he's in defeat.
Those speak to me about someone realizing the futility of war and of the cause.
DemocratSinceBirth
(99,988 posts)Love The Band.
Response to struggle4progress (Original post)
Warren DeMontague This message was self-deleted by its author.
Sam_Fields
(305 posts)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
In this case Dixie only refers to the South and not the confederate Flag.
marions ghost
(19,841 posts)anti-war in general.
libdem4life
(13,877 posts)struggle4progress
(119,447 posts)fishwax
(29,291 posts)There is a mournfulness to it, to be sure, but it doesn't strike me as a mourning for the south so much as a mourning of the tangible effects of the war on the populace. The song opens with the destruction of infrastructure and widespread hunger and suffering and ends with the personal loss of a relative in battle. There's no glorification of or attempt to rally sympathy for the southern cause. There is a mention of Robert E. Lee, but it's isolated and without context (and, incidentally, historically impossible, since Lee was apparently never in Tennessee after the war).
As for the song's relationship to confederate politics, I think that, given the role that brotherhood plays in the Civil War's cultural role, I think the narrator's name (Virgil Caine/Cain/Kane) is significant. Virgil, of course, was Dante's guide through Hell, while Cain is the bad brother in Genesis's tale of fratricide. And while Robbie Robertson was fascinated and inspired by repeatedly hearing the old "south will rise again" refrain from old timers in the south, the end of the song forecloses such possibility: "You can't raise a Cain back up when it's in defeat."
cemaphonic
(4,138 posts)And I pretty much agree with your take on the song. Just a poor farmer/soldier trying to come to grips with the destruction and loss of war.
fishwax
(29,291 posts)I always kind of thought I heard a "the" before "Robert E. Lee," which would suggest the steamboat.
Major Nikon
(36,877 posts)The idea was to get southerners to empathize with the perils of scorched earth war policies and the effects they have on those in which they are imposed.