The Top Ten Americana Songs of All Time: 9th= The Band “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” (1969)

The votes are in and counted, so we kick off our rundown to the Best Americana Song Of All Time with the first of two that were voted equal 9th. And truly equal, as they were both ranked No. 1 by two writers in the final vote and appeared in the list the same number of times.

It was pretty much nailed on that The Band would feature in this final list of the Top Ten Americana Songs of All Time – after all, the album that this song comes from was voted the No. 1 Americana Album Of All Time when AUK ran that particular Feature almost exactly 5 years ago.  And indeed The Band have two entries on the list, the first of which was voted at No 1  by two of our writers, but because they did not feature in as many writers’ lists, this particular track ends up at 9^th =.

Martin Johnson got to the nub of the song when he wrote, “Robertson had been working on the melody for ‘The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down’ for some months with no clue as to what the song was about. Levon Helm, as the only real American Southerner in the band, helped Robertson develop a song about the impact of the American Civil War on rural Southern white families”.  The story of the last few days of the Civil War is seen through the lens of Virgil Caine, a Southern white man, and the title reflects the crushing of the spirit of the Confederate South (collectively known as the Dixielands (Dixie)). For a song about demoralisation, it had an incredibly catchy chorus  (often a feature of The Band’s music), and it was indeed a brave move for a predominantly Canadian band to write about the white Southern experience at a time of the civil rights movement in America.  Andy Short highlighted “Levon Helm assumes vocal duties after co-writing with Robbie Robertson, and his delivery has an aching, anguished quality that perfectly complements the lyrical content”.