Lyrics to
The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down

This version of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down was released by John Denver in 1970.

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Virgil Caine is the name, I served on the Danville train.
The stoneman’s cavalry came and tore up the tracks again.
In the summer of ’65, we were hungry, just barely alive.
By May the 10th Richmond had fell, was a time I remember oh, so well.
The night they drove old Dixie down, and the bells were ringing.
The night they drove old Dixie down and the people were singing.
They went la la la la la la, la la la la la la la la.

Back home in Tennessee my wife called out to me.
Said Virgil, come quick and see, there goes Robert E. Lee.
I don’t mind chopping wood, and I don’t care if the money ain’t good.
You take what you need and save the rest, but they should never have taken the very best.
The night they drove old Dixie down, and the bells were ringing.
The night they drove old Dixie down and the people were singing.
They went la la la la la la, la la la la la la la la.

Like my father before me, he was a working man.
Like my brother above me, he took a rebel stand.
Was just 18, proud and brave when a Yankee laid him in his grave.
I swear by the blood beneath my feet, you can’t raise a Cain back up when he’s in defeat.
The night they drove old Dixie down, and the bells were ringing.
The night they drove old Dixie down and the people were singing.
They went la la la la la la, la la la la la la la la.

The night they drove old Dixie down, and the bells were ringing.
The night they drove old Dixie down and the people were singing.
They went la la la la la la, la la la la la la la la, la la la la la la, la la la la la la la la.

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John Denver has released many songs over the years besides The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down. John Denver released songs from 1969 to 1998 spanning across albums like Rhymes And Reasons, Take Me To Tomorrow, Whose Garden Was This?, Poems, Prayers And Promises, Aerie, Rocky Mountain High, Farewell Andromeda, Back Home Again, Rocky Mountain Christmas, An Evening With John Denver, Windsong, Spirit, I Want To Live, A Christmas Together, John Denver, Autograph, Some Days Are Diamonds, Seasons Of The Heart, Rocky Mountain Holiday, It's About Time, Dreamland Express, One World, Higher Ground, The Flower That Shattered The Stone, Christmas, Like A Lullaby, Different Directions, All Aboard!, and Forever, John. Decade Lyrics has over lyrics & songs by John Denver.

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About Lyrics and The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by John Denver

The lyrics for The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down are made up of the words, verses and background chorus for the popular 1970 song by John Denver. Like a lot of songs, the lyrics to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down have both direct meanings and metaphorical context hidden within the song's words. All of the meanings are only truly known by the creators of the lyrics for The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down - John Denver and any of the writers who worked with them on the song.

If you have an interest in the structure of words and phrases, you can dissect the lyrics to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down by John Denver in multiple ways. The word "lyric" itself derives from the Latin word lyricus, with the actual English word lyrics applied to the definition "words set to music" listed in Stainer and Barrett's 1876 Dictionary of Musical Terms. Continuing the chain, the Latin word lyricus derives from the Greek word λυρικός or lyrikós. This somewhat means "poetry accompanied by the lyre" or "words set to music." You can easily see that by looking at the background of the word lyric, that the "lyrics to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down" means the words set to the music of The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, or poetry accompanied by the lyre played by John Denver. The singular form "lyric" is still used to mean the complete words to a song. However, the singular form lyric is also commonly used to refer to a specific line (or phrase) within a song's lyrics. Hence, by this analysis of word structure, you could say that the lyric to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down and the lyrics to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down are both one and the same thing. None of this talk about the word Lyrics is really relevant to fans of John Denver who came here looking just for the lyrics to The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down, but we feel it is still fun to learn what's behind commonly used words and lyrics in songs.

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