Robbie Robertson's "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down", the third track on The Band (1969), may be his greatest song. And that's saying a lot. The song is the first-person story of a Confederate soldier who has lost family members and his livelihood, who has endured tremendous suffering and starvation, and who then must face the task of rebuilding everything, including his sense of belonging to a country that he's not sure he understands. It's a remarkable achievement, because every word (and every note) sounds genuine, as though the song were written in the 1860's, rather than a century later. It's interesting that the note of confrontational celebration in the chorus, when "all the bells were ringing" and so forth, was not one in which Lincoln indulged. When news of the formal Confederate surrender came to him, he ordered the band to play "Dixie", saying "I've always considered it one of the finest tunes I've ever heard".