Reconsidering "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down"

 #285: A 51-year-old Classic

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A recent celebration, in Nashville, of The Last Waltz, The Band's final concert and acclaimed film from 1976, featured altered lyrics to "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down".

I read about this year's celebratory event in Rolling Stone online, the day after; then, several days later, read a Salon article questioning the song's meaning: was it in any way pro-Confederate?  

My reading of the article's comments section underscored several insights the article's author had missed.  For example, that the lyrics are: "Back with my wife in Tennessee, when one day she said to me: 'Virgil, quick come see, there goes the Robert E. Lee'", referring to a steamboat on the Mississippi years after the war. 

Another example: that the character who narrates the verses, Virgil Caine, is a likely reference to the biblical Cain, who slew his brother Abel.

These points got me thinking about what the author refers to as the song's one ambiguous line: “They should never have taken the very best” He suggests that this 'they' "...could refer to either the Confederate war machine or the Union army".  As with all high art, ambiguity can be used to include all sides in a single whole.  In this case, the Confederate perspective is obvious.  The Union view comes into focus once we acknowledge the inherent immorality of slavery and its bent economy.  

Thus, "They should never have taken the very best", once split into four parts, becomes:

"They should never have" (a simple definition of slavery)

"taken" (appropriation)

"the very" (or, thievery)

"best" 

In other words, the notion that slavery is the best we can do is absurd, and thus, slaves should never have been stolen, and the system can't possibly be considered 'best'--a proposition both Blacks, and also poor whites (who had to compete in a rigged system) agreed with to varying degrees.

Several other wonderful references:

* the chorus includes "...and all the bells were ringing" (right, the belles now figuratively wore rings, a reference to the impending end of rape as a commonplace--literally, and again, figuratively, as slavery was rape writ large).

* "I don't mind chopping wood, and I don't care if the money's no good..." a possible reference to President Lincoln, who was known as The Railsplitter, combined with the acknowledgement that even the great Lincoln toiled for a living (since the setting is 1870, the "money's no good" reference can't be to Confederate currency).  If so, "They should never have taken the very best", which follows "I don't mind...", points, additionally, to Lincoln (great art, as mentioned earlier, packs many different meanings into a singular expression).

* And finally, who did the biblical Cain murder?  The answer: Abe L.  

Brother against brother, as in the war between the states; there really couldn't be a better metaphor for our Civil War.  Which is why the song is a classic.  Its lyrics are intentional and state the war's outcome in a nutshell: Slaves should never have been taken, stolen, to be used as beasts.

Even better, the songwriter shows us where he stands by alluding to his own name, Robbie Robertson, in that climatic statement that brings on the song's chorus: "But they should never have taken the very best."