Til Stonemans Cavalry Came and Tore Up the Tracks Again
From the 1978 motion-picture show 'The Last Flit'
Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train,
Til Stoneman'southward cavalry came and tore up the tracks once more.
In the wintertime of '65, Nosotros were hungry, simply barely alive.
By May tenth, Richmond had brutal, it's a time I remember, oh so well,
The Night They Drove Quondam Dixie Down, when all 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, Na,
Back with my wife in Tennessee, When ane day she chosen to me,
Said "Virgil, quick, come up and see, at that place goes the Robert E. Lee!"
Now I don't listen choppin' wood, and I don't care if the coin's no good.
Ya take what ya need and ya get out the rest,
But they should never accept taken the very best.
The Nighttime They Drove Old Dixie Downwards, when all the bells were ringing,
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Downwards, and all the people were singin'. They went,
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na,
Na, Na, Na, Na, Na, Na,
Na, Na, Na,
Like my begetter earlier me, I volition piece of work the land,
And like my brother above me, who took a rebel stand.
He was only eighteen, proud and dauntless, Merely a Yankee laid him in his grave,
And I swear by the mud below my anxiety,
You tin can't raise a Caine back up when he'south in defeat.
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Downwards, when all 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, Na,
_______________
The Dark They Drove Old Dixie Down
From Wikipedia, the costless encyclopedia
| "The Dark They Drove Old Dixie Down" | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Single by The Band | |
| from the album The Ring | |
| A-side | "Up on Cripple Creek" |
| Released | September 22, 1969 |
| Recorded | 1969 |
| Genre | Roots rock, Southern rock, Americana |
| Length | 3:33 |
| Label | Capitol |
| Writer(s) | Robbie Robertson |
| Producer | John Simon |
The Band also released a live album named for and featuring the song.
"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is a vocal written past Canadian musician Robbie Robertson, beginning recorded by The Band in 1969 and released on their self-titled 2nd anthology. Joan Baez' cover of the vocal was a top-v chart hit in late 1971.
[edit] Meaning of vocal
The lyrics tell of the last days of the American Civil State of war and the suffering of the South.[i] Dixie is a nickname for the Southern Amalgamated states. Confederate soldier Virgil Caine "served on the Danville train" (the Richmond and Danville Railroad, a principal supply line into the Confederate capital of Richmond, Virginia from Danville, Virginia, and by connection, the residual of the South). Wedlock cavalry regularly tore up Confederate rail lines to prevent the motility of men and material to the front where Robert E. Lee's Army of Northern Virginia was besieged at Siege of Petersburg. As role of the offensive entrada, Marriage Army General George Stoneman's forces "tore upwardly the track once again".
The song's lyric refers to weather condition in the Southern states in the winter of early 1865 ("Nosotros were hungry / Just barely live"); the Confederacy is starving and on the verge of defeat. Reference is made to the date May ten, 1865, by which time the Confederate capital of Richmond had long since fallen (in April); May 10 marked the capture of Confederate President Jefferson Davis and the definitive end of the Confederacy.
There is some poetic license in the song's dates and events, for instance the reference to Virgil Caine existence home with his wife in Tennessee and seeing Robert E. Lee (Afterwards performances, including the Joan Baez recording and some live versions by The Ring themselves, added "the" earlier "Robert E. Lee", making information technology seem to relate to the mail service-war Mississippi riverboat paddlewheeler the Robert E. Lee (steamboat), and not the person, passing by).[2] Virgil also relates and mourns the loss of his brother: "He was simply xviii, proud and brave / Just a Yankee laid him in his grave".
Robertson claimed that he had the music to the song in his head but had no idea what it was to be about: "At some point [the concept] blurted out to me. Then I went and I did some inquiry and I wrote the lyrics to the song." Robertson continued:
When I first went down South, I remember that a quite common expression would be, "Well don't worry, the Southward's gonna rising once again." At one betoken when I heard it I idea it was kind of a funny argument and then I heard it some other time and I was actually touched by information technology. I thought, "God, because I keep hearing this, at that place's hurting here, there is a sadness here." In Americana land, information technology's a kind of a cute sadness.[iii]
[edit] Context within the album and The Band'due south history
According to Rob Bowman'south liner notes to the 2000 reissue of The Band's second album, The Band, information technology has been viewed equally a concept album, with the songs focusing on peoples, places and traditions associated with an older version of Americana. Though never a major striking, "Dixie" was the centerpiece of the record, and, along with "The Weight" from Music From Big Pink, remains one of the songs most identified with the group.
The Ring often performed the song in concert, and it can exist establish on the group'south live albums Rock of Ages (1972) and Before the Flood (1974). It was also a highlight of their "farewell" concert on Thanksgiving Day 1976, and is featured in the documentary pic about the concert, The Terminal Waltz, as well as the soundtrack anthology from the film.
It was #245 on Rolling Stone magazine's listing of the 500 greatest songs of all fourth dimension.[4]
Pitchfork Media named information technology the forty-second all-time song of the Sixties.[five] The song is included in the Rock and Scroll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Stone and Roll" and Fourth dimension Magazine's All-Time 100.[6] [7]
The last fourth dimension the song was performed by Levon Helm, The Band's lead singer, was in The Last Waltz (1976). Helm, a native of Arkansas, has stated that he assisted in the research for the lyrics.[4] In his 1993 book This Wheel's on Fire, Captain writes "Robbie and I worked on 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Downwards' upwards in Woodstock. I call up taking him to the library and so he could research the history and geography of the era and make General Robert E. Lee come out with all due respect."
Helm refused to play the song after 1976 fifty-fifty though he held concerts, which he called "Midnight Rambles", several times a month at his private residence in Woodstock, New York.
[edit] Reception
Ralph J. Gleason (in the review in Rolling Rock (U.s. edition only) of October 1969) explains why this song has such an impact on listeners:
Nothing I accept read … has brought abode the overwhelming human being sense of history that this vocal does. The merely affair 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 pulsate accents and and so the heavy close harmony of Levon, Richard and Rick in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn't some traditional fabric 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.
[edit] Covers of the song
The most successful English-language cover of the vocal was a version by Joan Baez released in 1971, which peaked at number three on the Billboard Hot 100 chart in the United states of america in October that year and spent five weeks atop the easy listening nautical chart.[8] Baez's version fabricated some changes to the song lyric; The 2nd line "Till Stoneman'southward cavalry came". Baez sings "Till so much cavalry came". She also changed "May the 10th" to "I took the train". In addition, the line "like my father earlier me, I will work the land" was inverse to "like my father earlier me, I'm a working human being", changing the narrator from a farmer to a laborer. In the last verse she changed "the mud below my feet" to "the claret below my anxiety". Baez later on told Rolling Stone's Kurt Loder that she initially learned the vocal by listening to the recording on the Ring's anthology, and had never seen the printed lyrics at the time she recorded it, and thus sang the lyrics equally she'd (mis)heard them. In more recent years in her concerts, Baez has performed the song as originally written by Robertson.[nine] The song became the highest charting U.Southward. single of Baez' career, and has remained a staple of her concert prepare list, from that signal forrard.
Johnny Greenbacks covered the song on his 1975 album John R. Cash. Onetime-time musician Jimmy Arnold recorded the vocal on his album "Southern Soul," which was composed of songs associated with the Southern side of the Ceremonious War. Don Rich and the Buckaroos covered the rail. Steve Young recorded the song on his 1975 album Honky Tonk Man. The vocal likewise appears on the album Whose Garden Was This past John Denver, released in 1970. It was also included in his 2001 release, John Denver The Greatest Drove. The Allman Brothers Band covered the song for the 2007 anthology Endless Highway: The Music of The Band. The Jerry Garcia Band as well covered the song live for over 20 years and it is even so held as a fan favorite today.
In 1972, a cover of the song chosen "Am Tag als Conny Kramer starb" (translation: "On the Day that Conny Kramer Died") was a number-one hit in West Germany for singer Juliane Werding. For this version, the lyrics were not translated but rather changed completely to an anti-drug anthem about a swain dying because of his drug addiction – an extremely hot topic in that year, when heroin was making the kickoff big inroads in Germany. In 1986, the High german band Die Goldenen Zitronen fabricated a parody version of this vocal with the title "Am Tag als Thomas Anders starb" ("On the Twenty-four hours that Thomas Anders Died").
A fairly large-scale orchestrated version of the song appears on the little-known 1971 concept album California '99 (ABC Records, ABC728) by composer/arranger/producer Jimmie Haskell, with lead vocal by Jimmy Witherspoon.
Irish folk musician Derek Warfield and his new band the Immature Wolfe Tones, included a version of the song on their 2008 anthology "The Night Is Young".
Charlie Daniels Band, Big Land, Dave Brockie, Richie Havens, Black Crowes and Zac Chocolate-brown Band have included covers on live albums.
[edit] Use in Film
The Ring's version of "The Night They Collection Old Dixie Down" was used in the 1977 film "The Shadow of Chikara" (also titled "Curse Of Demon Mountain" and several other titles).[commendation needed]
[edit] Personnel on The Band version
- Rick Danko – Bass guitar, backing vocals
- Levon Helm – Atomic number 82 vocals, drums
- Garth Hudson – Melodica, slide trumpet
- Richard Manuel – Piano, bankroll vocals
- Robbie Robertson – Acoustic guitar
williamsaring1969.blogspot.com
Source: https://thedailyhatch.org/2012/04/20/the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/
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