THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN

Robbie Robertson - 1998:Goldmine

"Levon's connection to it was, things that when I went down there, things that he turned me on to. Just kind of showing me around and stuff, and bringin' me up to speed on what was goin' on in his 'hood.' And I don't know, really, where it had come from. Usually when you write songs, you write because it's the only thing you can think of at the time. But it was something that I absorbed, and then years later it came out in a song."

Robbie Robertson - 1988:radio interview

"I liked the way people talked (in the south), I liked the way they moved. I liked being in a place that had rhythm in the air. I thought, 'No wonder they invented rock & roll here. Everything sounds like music...' I got to come into this world a cold outsider — cold literally from Canada — and because I didn't take it for granted, it made me write something like 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'. These old men would say, 'Yeah, but never mind, Robbie. One of these days the South is going to rise again.' I didn't take it as a joke. I thought it was really touching that these people lived this world from the standpoint of a rocking chair."

Robbie Robertson - The Great Divide by Barney Hoskyns

"It took me about eight months in all to write that song. I only had the music for it, and I didn't know what it was about at all. I'd sit down at the piano and play these chords over and over again. And then one day the rest of it came to me. Sometimes you have to wait a song out, and I'm glad I waited for that one."






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Virgil Caine is the name, and I served on the Danville train
'Till 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 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

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

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,

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

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, la, na, la, 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, la, na, la, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na, na

THE NIGHT THEY DROVE OLD DIXIE DOWN

Robbie Robertson

Personnel

Robbie Robertson - 1998:Goldmine

Robbie Robertson - 1988:radio interview

Robbie Robertson - The Great Divide by Barney Hoskyns