The Last Waltz, Martin Scorsese's documentary of The Band's final concert, was on last night on MGM Movies. I had seen bits and pieces of it before, but never all the way through. My God, it's pretentious. It takes itself so fcuking seriously that it achieves a whole new level of rock pomposity, very slyly destroyed a few years later by the inimitable This is Spinal Tap, of course.

However, the songs (barring a few like the Joni Mitchell number, where she laments on her incompatibility with a coyote) were fcuking glorious: Take a Load off Fanny and, my favourite, The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down were particularly excellent.

I am sure they will show it again and again on Digiturk, so I suggest you try and catch it if and when you can.

God, I love The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. What a fcuking tune!

Remind me to pass along to you Johnny Cash's version of the song (with church-choir type backing vocals) from his 1974 album John R. Cash. Good stuff.

I've got it, hon. I was listening to it earlier today actually. I also have the Joan Baez version where she inexplicably changes a few of the lines. Instead of "By May 10th, Richmond had fell," she sings "I took the train to Richmond that fell, " which makes no sense, and rather than singing about Robert E. Lee, the general, she sings about a fcuking steamboat called "The Robert E. Lee." It was a Top Ten hit for her in 1971, I believe. Also have a version by The Black Crowes that is similar to the Cash one.

Re: Joan Baez...it's strange to hear a woman's voice singing lyrics that were intended for a man! "Virgil Caine is my name...". Just curious Arikan, why do you like this song so much?

They showed it last week too.
I'm curious too my you like that song so much.....

Not just that, but the song that she sings is not at all about the American Civil War. Apart from turning Robert E. Lee into an eponymous steamboat, Baez's version does not mention "Stoneman's cavalry," but "so much cavalry" instead. As a result, the final product just suspends in the air as a nice ditty, without the power and resonance of the original lyrics. I suspect she did not want to sing a song that seemingly, at first glance, glorified the South.

I love the song for a few reasons. First of all, as is the case with any pop song, really, it is the melody that gets me. The -almost military- horns at the beginning, slowly dying down, like the Old South, and then an abrupt riff on Robertson's electric/acoustic guitar. Levon Helm's vocals, himself from Little Rock (I believe), are heartwrenching, but the entire performance of the whole band (or Band) is the true powerhouse. The synergy of the performers, and also of the melody and the lyrics is almost divine. It's a testament to the oft-quoted, yet true, shibboleth that, in rock n' roll, the best bands have always been much greater than the sum of their parts.

I also love the sheer angst, pathos and silent audacity of the lyrics. Virgil almost brings himself up to rebel, but his defiance is cut short by that giant forbidding sense of doom and failure, and, still proud, he proclaims that "you can't raise a Cain back up when he's in defeat."

On another level, I find the song very ironic, too. There is a very human element to the tune, yet when one thinks back to slavery (and early 20th Century), it almost feels like the South got what it deserved. I don't think this was intentional, but one has to separate the art from the artist (and their original intentions).

You kow when I said The Last Waltz was pretentious? I should know. We smell our own.

Thanks for explaining, Smelly It is a good tune, but the lyrics...eh, I guess I grew up as a Yankee and have always taken it as so much more pouting on the part of the the South. I don't believe I ever heard a pop song about Union casualties of the Civil War? Just because my ancestors were on the winning side...uhoh I better shut up for fear some US Southerners read this... I personally like Neil Young's "Southern Man" and "Alabama". Then there is Lynard Skynard's "Sweet Home Alabama" :

Well, I heard Mister Young sing about her
Well, I heard ole Neil put her down.
Well, I hope Neil Young will remember
a Southern man don't need him around anyhow

Interesting analysis. As a southerner with relatives who fought on the northern side, I've never particularly much liked that song myself. It's not all that popular of a song down south.