For Real Toads: the music of Levon Helm

“They never should have 

 taken the very best”

from “The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down” by Robbie Robertson

*

Robertson playing in The Band

music is thicker than water, I know,

and somehow a Canadian wrote 

a legendary American song

for his friend Levon—

and the drums, oh, the drums!

for the pain of Virgil Caine

*

“like my brother before me,

 I took a Rebel stand...

 he was just eighteen, proud and brave

 when a Yankee laid him in his grave”

Levon Helm playing and singing

*

when The Band played the song

others picked it up

Joan Baez, Johnny Cash,

John Denver, Jerry Garcia,

but they didn’t have

the drums, Levon's drums!

for the pain of Virgil Caine 

*

“I swear by the mud below my feet

 you can’t raise a Caine back up when he’s in defeat”

*

Marian’s challenge this week at the writers’ group Imaginary Garden with Real Toads, is to base our writing on a song by the late, great Levon Helm, drummer and lead singer with The Band. Although Levon didn’t write this song, he worked with Robbie Robertson, especially setting him straight about the American Civil War.

Levon Helm died last month at the age of 71, following a long struggle with cancer, but he had kept singing and recording until last year. As well as drums, he played other instruments, and had a brief but successful acting career.

The Band in the movie "The Last Waltz"

Levon Helm, 2011