Talk:The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

message: The "Historical Inaccuracies" section of this article pointed out two flaws in the song's narrative from a historical standpoint. Someone erased this, leaving only the note on the page history that it was "irrelevant." If the song was so important in the sense that it reflected a historical event, it would seem VERY RELEVANT to the article to point out factual errors. I'm not sure why this was erased, but it really ought to be put back.
--Ironchef8000 (talk) 05:34, 3 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: I've deleted this section again; since the song does not claim to be a historical record, and the discussion of the song above does not claim that it is particularly based on correct historical detail, this is just nit-picking that adds no value to the reader's understanding of the topic.  Moreover, the arguments do not hold; the song lyric says "by May the 10th", not "on May the 10th"; so the lyric is technically accurate as well as true to the spirit of the song (there was no CNN, news took a while to travel).  And the song does not appear to claim that Lee "campaigned" in TN; in fact there is no strong agreement what that line is referring to, so there is nothing to argue with. Jgm (talk) 20:08, 4 May 2009 (UTC)
replies: text: For the record, Richmond fell on or about April 3, 1865. 174.56.173.38 (talk) 16:18, 14 October 2023 (UTC)
thread_title: Section Deleted, Historical Inaccuracies should be on the article

message: The photo of the rail line at Petersburg is very inaccurately captioned.  That is a Federal mortar, on a Federal track.  Not Confederate.  In fact it has very little connection to the song at all, other than also being from the Civil War.--Caswain01 (talk) 20:59, 26 October 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Dictator Photo 

message: I just listened five times to this passage from the original Band recording of the song and it seems clear to me that he is saying "...there goes the Robert E. Lee..."
Additionally, I learned this song from the official Band songbook for the album and, though I do not have that in front of me, I certainly learned it as "...the Robert E. Lee..."  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dogmo1001 (talk • contribs) 23:32, 1 May 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: I commented out this paragraph. It relies solely on a misstatement by Peter Viney on theband.hiof.no in which Viney just plain gets it wrong. Even a casual listen to the actual lyrics in the first release of the recording reveals that Helm is singing "the Robert E. Lee"; it wasn't added in later performances. I've owned this album continually since it was first released, and I understood from the outset that the lyrics were in reference to a vehicle — a riverboat or a train — and secondarily or symbolically to Lee, himself. rowley (talk) 19:09, 20 April 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: "Back" generally means back in time, not forward in time. What I get out of it- before he joined the Conf'd army, Virgil and his wife saw Lee and his troop passed near his farm. Now, he didn't mind the Rebel army chopping his wood (armies need loots of fire wood), and he didn't care if the money (that the Conf army paid him, for the goods that they "foraged", which was the common pratice) was no good.  The Rebel army "lived off the land" just like the Northern army, even when it opporated in its own territory.  I would "pay" for what it took, with confederate script.  I think this was intented.  The alternatives, that Virgil was witness to some river boat race, just doesn't fit in the context at all. Steve kap (talk) 16:28, 16 February 2012 (UTC)
replies: text: "Back" can also mean the return to an earlier or normal condition, as in, "I'm going back to my home town." The protagonist has returned home, and is doing menial, poorly paid work to survive (apropos of the post-bellum economic conditions of the southern US). The subtext, for me, is that powerful will always get by and stick together (many of the southern politicians and generals were rewarded with corporate directorships), while the poor stay poor. fishhead64 (talk) 17:13, 23 August 2013 (UTC)

text: That comment does not make sense.  The lyrics do not state what year it was when Virgil's wife spotted the Robert E. Lee.  It was after the war, but did not have to be during the race, as assumed by the previous poster.  In addition, it was much much more likely that she would spot a steamboat that frequently went up and down the river (i.e., the Robert E. Lee), then that she would spot General Robert E. Lee himself.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 174.56.173.38 (talk) 16:34, 15 January 2024 (UTC)

text: By the way, Robertson often took full songwriting credit for a number of the Band's songs which were in fact group efforts.  Including TNTDODD, which was a collaborationist songwriting endeavor between Robertson and Helm, who together went to a local library and researched Civil War history when writing the tune.  Read Levon's book, "This Wheel's On Fire".  Furthermore, Helm is the vocalist and if he sang the words as "THE Robert E. Lee" then those should be considered the real lyrics.  174.56.173.38 (talk) 16:50, 15 January 2024 (UTC)
thread_title:  "...there goes Robert E. Lee..." or "..there goes the Robert E. Lee.." 

message: Reference #3 is to another Wikipedia article. Is this a proper reference? Cousin Ricky (talk) 15:28, 14 December 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  Questionable reference 

message: "The song's lyric refers to conditions in the Southern states in the winter of early 1865 ("We were hungry / Just barely alive"); the Confederacy is starving and on the verge of defeat."
The south had been defeated 6 months prior to the winter of 1865.  Assuming that this was not just a mistake on The Band's part, this particular line is referring to the the time after the war was over.69.138.223.87 (talk) 16:38, 19 December 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Problem with sentence is "song meaning" section 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

message: What was the significance of the Na-na-na? Valetude (talk) 23:00, 7 January 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  What was the Na-na-na about? 

message: In the Other versions section, there is a very long sentence listing other artists who have recorded it.  But it ends saying ‘have included it on  live albums’.  Which of those listed, other than Zac Brown?  Clarity please, as it reads badly right now. Boscaswell talk 03:43, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sentence starts one way, ends another