Posted on 04/04/2018 7:33:54 PM PDT by donaldo
Revisiting 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down' by the Band. Any opinions? I think James Gleason nailed it in his Rolling Stone Review:
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.
Great song, “he was just 18, proud and brave, when a yankee, laid him in his grave ...” always gives me chills ...
Awesome song. The Band sounds the best, guess it is the accent.
I can’t get past the way that Joan mangled the lyrics. UGH.
Listened to it the other day and was struck by how realistic he seems.
Sorry, but Joan Baez’s version is a joke compared to the Band.
Here's another great one:
Think I’ll go visit Little Bessie
The live version of Acadian Driftwood from The Last Waltz is better, IMO.
L
Wouldn’t the ring of truth require getting the month of Richmond’s fall correct? And wouldn’t it include Lee having actually gone to Tennessee during the war?
Historical fiction, OK; history, no.
Johnny sang that. If there are any statues of Johnny they need to be torn down. Or if anything is named after him. Sarc Sarc and more sarc
one day she called to me
she said Virgil quick, come and see
there goes Robert E. Lee
Well the history is a bit mixed up, since Robert E. Lee was not in Tennessee (nice rhyme though). Yes, it's a great song!!
Yes, I caught the inaccuracies. Here is a good link about the song and its composition:
http://theband.hiof.no/articles/dixie_viney.html
The Band was one of the premier rock bands ever assembled in my opinion. Certainly The “Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” was a very good song by them. It definitely put a different light on the south. One I thought was good. They recorded many great songs.
Correction: that should read Ralph Gleason, not James Gleason above.
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