# Joan Baez Sings 'The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down'? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Created:** [August 8, 2018, 7:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263 "2018-08-08T07:57:58Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jaycat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jaycat/32/3015_2.png) [@jaycat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jaycat)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263/41 "2018-08-09T14:26:33Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > The only part of the song that bothered me was “by May tenth, Richmond had fell”. Lincoln visited the fallen Richmond days before he was shot in April. Where the hell did May 10 come from? I assume it’s just a matter of syllables. > > There is no comparison between The Band and Levon Helm’s soulful singing of this song and Joan Baez’s soulless valium-drip version. Why she sung it, I don’t know. Why anyone would ever listen to it when the infinitely better rendition is available is beyond me. Have to agree. Joan isn’t the best interpreter of other people’s material, it gets homogenized. Otherwise, it seems like some people in this thread are confusing creative writing with journalism. ---
**Author:** ![Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/7cd45c/32.png) [@Elendil\_s\_Heir](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Elendil_s_Heir)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263/42 "2018-08-09T14:39:18Z")
> [@ElvisL1ves](#): > > And wasn’t built until 1866. Well, we don’t know exactly how long after the war Virgil is thinking/singing. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 2:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263/43 "2018-08-09T14:40:26Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Is Dixie the South, or is it the Confederacy? It has always been the South, and still is. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263/44 "2018-08-09T14:43:39Z")
> [@BobLibDem](#): > > Where the hell did May 10 come from? That’s the day Jefferson Davis was captured. It’s not entirely wrong to call it the end of the Confederacy. ---
**Author:** ![Ukulele\_Ike](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/df788c/32.png) [@Ukulele\_Ike](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ukulele_Ike)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 3:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263/45 "2018-08-09T15:09:49Z")
[QUOTE=Alessan;21136764)Now, maybe by"Old Dixie" he’s referring to the land and its people, and not to the political entity. I don’t know. Is Dixie the South, or is it the Confederacy?[/QUOTE] The former, most assuredly. There are dozens of early (pre-bebop) jazz recordings by black artists that wistfully imagine goin’ back down to dear old Dixie. It was Home. Of course, what they missed was Mom and her yummy red beans and rice, not the overt racism. ---
**Author:** ![DavidwithanR](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3bc359/32.png) [@DavidwithanR](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DavidwithanR)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 3:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263/46 "2018-08-09T15:25:52Z")
> [@mixdenny](#): > > Within the past few years that we see increased public outcry against Confederate monuments and demands that they be removed. Schools and anything else named after Confederate leaders are being renamed. Confederate flags are banned from being displayed at various places. > > Dennis You’re happy to keep monuments glorifying slavery? Slavery is your idea of a good time? If you want history, where’s your memorial to Benedict Arnold? Where’s your Union Jack? ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 3:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263/47 "2018-08-09T15:26:57Z")
All the people were singing and all the bells were ringing - yeah, in the North. ---
**Author:** ![ElvisL1ves](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/5daacb/32.png) [@ElvisL1ves](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElvisL1ves)\ **Post date:** [August 9, 2018, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263/48 "2018-08-09T15:29:28Z")
> [@DavidwithanR](#): > > You’re happy to keep monuments glorifying slavery? More specifically, those monuments were erected to remind the coloreds to keep in their place. They were also part of a movement to claim that the war was about states’ rights instead of slavery - that’s the \*real \*whitewashing of slavery and the rebellion, it is the \*real \*erasure of history, and it is long overdue to end. ---
**Author:** ![Gyrate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gyrate/32/3588_2.png) [@Gyrate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gyrate)\ **Post date:** [August 10, 2018, 9:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263/49 "2018-08-10T09:39:21Z")
> [@Ukulele\_Ike](#): > > The former, most assuredly. > > There are dozens of early (pre-bebop) jazz recordings by black artists that wistfully imagine goin’ back down to dear old Dixie. It was Home. > > Of course, what they missed was Mom and her yummy red beans and rice, not the overt racism. And most of those songs were straight out of the old black-and-white minstrel shows (or the tradition of those shows), where the songs were written and often performed by white people. And \*for \*white people. Stephen Foster probably deserves much of the credit and/or blame for popularizing the more saccharine strain of quasi-Dixie nostalgia songs; Foster of course wrote all those songs from his Southern plantation in… Pittsburgh. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/joan-baez-sings-the-night-they-drove-old-dixie-down/819263.md?page=2)