Just listened to the exceptional verson on The Last Waltz. Always loved The Band and this song.
I’ve always taken the as song a sympathetic portryal of southerers caught up in the war.They didn’t support, or not, slavery. I am fron southwest Virginia, and Virginia was in the Confederacy
Back with my wife in Tennessee
When one day she called to me
“Virgil, quick, come see
There goes the Robert E. Lee”
Now I don’t mind choppin’ wood
And I don’t care if the money’s no good
You take what you need and you leave the rest
But they should never have taken the very best
Now I know that Robbie Robertson is a liberal so I am sure he did not write the song in support of the Confederacy, but listening closely now I can see some racist southerner singing along in a bar- Dixie! The South will rise again! Trump!
Now you can’t blame a songwriter for people misunderstanding his song, but I just wonder about the song in general. Why a sympathetic portrayl of Virgil Cane. Why not write a a song about the evils of slavery? Well maybe because it had already been done, many times before, and Robbie wanted to write a song dealing with the complex nature of the issue. You live in Virginia, and you believe slavery is wrong, as I believe Robert E Lee did. But you are at war, and you support your side even if you know it is wrong?And that is what the song is about?