Graced by Bob Dylan, The Band quickly cemented their place in Rock music. The group started as The Hawks, and “toured with Dylan from September of 1965 through May of 1966” (“Robbie Robertson”). In 1967, the group signed to Capitol Records and changed their name to The Band. After their debut album, they released an eponymous album “all of whose 12 songs were written or co-written by Robertson” (“Robbie Robertson”). The self-titled album included “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down,” a story told from the perspective of a poor white Southerner during the last years of the Civil War. As a Canadian, Robbie Robertson offers an outsiders perspective on the Civil War. Robertson writes about the experience of a Southerner, and the state of the…show more content… The line, “'Till Stoneman's cavalry came and tore up the tracks again” refers to Union raids led by General Stoneman (Robertson). In 1865, General Stoneman was ordered to “destroy the East Tennessee and Virginia Railroad, as well as railroads and military supplies in central and western North Carolina” (Hartgrove). The goal was to prevent the South from getting more supplies. Furthermore, Robertson also addresses the economic condition of the South. The line, “and I don't care if the money's no good,” refers to the slow economic growth of the South (Robertson). The South’s reliance on a “predominantly agricultural economy made it difficult to raise taxes or large sums of money” (“War and the Economy”). In addition, this line could also be referring to the value of Southern money. The lack of central authority in the South led to states print their own money, and “the currency came to have so little value that people eventually turned to barter” (“War and the Economy”). Although Robertson portrays a fairly accurate picture of the South, he gets a few details wrong. The song…show more content… The loss of life during the war was devastating, and “of the 50,000 U.S. servicemen killed in Vietnam, 1961-70, 90 percent were 18-26” (Lieberman). Similarly, young soldiers were being sent to their deaths during the Civil war, and the public grew restless waiting for it to end. These attitudes could have provided a stimulus for Robbie Robertson to write the song, and to express his feelings about the war. Robertson attempts to portray history “as a memory in the mind of the common, anonymous person whose life is rarely examined by historians” (Emblidge). In addition, Robertson also had a personal reason for writing this song. When asked about his visit to the South, he said, “I liked the way people talked, I liked the way they moved. I liked being in a place that had rhythm in the air” (theband.hiof.no). The political climate of the era, and his love for the South inspired him to write the iconic
