| The Band – The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down Lyrics | 7 years ago |
| As I see it, the song is critical of both the Confederacy and the Union. After all, the side that shouldn't have taken "the very best" is the forces of Robert E Lee, whose Confederate dollars weren't worth the paper they were written on. The best in this case refers both to the quality of the trees - raping the landscape - as well as taking the best of people - the brother referred to in the next stanza. Bottom line for me is that this is a song that doesn't look at war from the perspective of ideology but rather from the perspective of how it tears apart the lives of individuals. Above all else, Virgil Caine is lamenting the loss of his brother, not defending the cause of the South. An individual caught up in the storm. | |
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