Ночь, когда рухнула старая Диксилэнд

1969 single by The Band

"The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" is a song written by Robbie Robertson and originally recorded by the Canadian American roots rock group The Band in 1969 and released on their eponymous second album. Levon Helm provided the lead vocals. The song is a first person narrative relating the economic and social distress experienced by the protagonist, a poor white Southerner, during the last year of the American Civil War, when George Stoneman was raiding southwest Virginia. Joan Baez's version peaked at #3 on the Hot 100 on 2 October 1971; it did likewise on the Cashbox Top 100 chart. However, on the Record World Top Singles chart for the week of September 25, 1971, the Baez single hit #1 for one week.

The song was number 245 on Rolling Stone magazine's list of the 500 greatest songs of all time. Pitchfork Media named it the forty second best song of the 1960s. The song is included in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll" and Time magazine's All Time 100. Critic Ralph J. Gleason (in the review in Rolling Stone (U. S. edition only) of October 1969) explains why this song has such an impact on listeners:Nothing I have read has brought home the overwhelming human sense of history that this song does. The only thing I can relate it to at all is The Red Badge of Courage. It's a remarkable song, the rhythmic structure, the voice of Levon and the bass line with the drum accents and then the heavy close harmony of Levon, Richard and Rick in the theme, make it seem impossible that this isn't some traditional material handed down from father to son straight from that winter of 1865 to today. It has that ring of truth and the whole aura of authenticity.

Some commentators in the 21st century have questioned whether the song's original lyrics made it an endorsement of slavery and the ideology of the Lost Cause of the Confederacy. In 2009, writing in The Atlantic, Ta Nehisi Coates characterized the song as "another story about the blues of Pharaoh". In an August 2020 interview in Rolling Stone, contemporary singer songwriter Early James described how he had started changing the lyrics of the song, while covering it, to oppose the Confederate cause — for example, in the first verse, "where Helm sang that the fall of the Confederacy was 'a time I remember oh so well', James declared it 'a time to bid farewell, and he reworked the final verse to state "Unlike my father before me, who I will never understand I think it's time we laid hate in its grave." An editorial in The Roanoke Times in 2020 argued that these views are based on a misunderstanding of the song, which does not glorify slavery, the Confederacy, or Robert E. Lee, but, rather, tells the story of a poor, non slave holding Southerner who tries to make sense of the loss of his brother and his livelihood. It notes that it was written, not by a Southerner, but by a Canadian, and contained factual errors. Jack Hamilton, of the University of Virginia, writing in Slate, said that it is "an anti war song first and foremost", pointing to the references to "bells ringing" and "people singing" in the chorus.

The most successful version of the song was the one by Joan Baez, which became a RIAA certified Gold record on 22 October 1971. In addition to chart action on the Hot 100, the record spent five weeks atop the easy listening chart. Billboard ranked it as the No. 20 song for 1971. The version reached number six in the pop charts in the UK in October 1971. The Baez recording had some changes in the lyrics. Baez later told Rolling Stones Kurt Loder that she initially learned the song by listening to the recording on the Band's album, and had never seen the printed lyrics at the time she recorded it, and thus sang the lyrics as she had (mis)heard them. In more recent years in her concerts, Baez has performed the song as originally written by Robertson.

Chart (1971)PeakpositionAustralia National Top 40 (Go Set)5Canada RPM Top Singles3Canada RPM Adult Contemporary1New Zealand (Listener)4UK Singles Chart6U. S. Billboard Hot 1003U. S. Billboard Adult Contemporary1U. S. Cashbox Top 1003

Chart (1971)RankCanada39U. S. Billboard Hot 10020U. S. Cash Box21

Johnny Cash recorded the song on his 1975 album John R. Cash. Old time musician Jimmy Arnold recorded the song on his album Southern Soul, which was composed of songs associated with the Southern side of the Civil War. A fairly large scale orchestrated version of the song appears on the 1971 concept album California '99 by Jimmie Haskell, with lead vocal by Jimmy Witherspoon. Others to record versions include Don Rich, Steve Young, John Denver, the Allman Brothers Band, Derek Warfield. the Charlie Daniels Band, Big Country, the Dave Brockie Experience, Vikki Carr, Richie Havens, the Black Crowes, Solomon Burke, Earl Thomas Conley, the Jerry Garcia Band, Sophie B. Hawkins, Legion of Mary, and the Zac Brown Band have included it on live albums. In 2008, Johnny Logan covered the song on his album, Irishman in America. Glen Hansard (of the Frames and the Swell Season), accompanied by Lisa Hannigan and John Smith, performed the song in July 2012 for The A. V. Club A. V. Undercover: Summer Break series. The 1972 song "Am Tag als Conny Kramer starb" ("On the Day That Conny Kramer Died"), which uses the tune of the song, was a number one hit in West Germany for singer Juliane Werding. The lyrics are about a young man dying because of his drug addiction. In 1986, the German band Die Goldenen Zitronen made a parody version of this song with the title "Am Tag als Thomas Anders starb" ("On the Day That Thomas Anders Died"). Samples from the song can be found in the 2006 song "Stopping All Stations" released by Australian hip hop group Hilltop Hoods, played at a higher pitch and at an increased speed. The song follows a fictional storyline of three separate events, written by MC Pressure and influenced by a "series of robbings, stabbings and bashings of senior citizens" across the various Adelaide Metro train lines in South Australia. In 2007, Hilltop Hoods released "Stopping All Stations Restrung" featuring the Adelaide Symphony Orchestra.